Crocodile Hunter -8yr- Visit with a Reptile Handler

My son wanted a Crocodile Hunter party for his 8th birthday party. 

For invitations I scanned in a picture of him holding a baby alligator that we had taken on vacation.  The front of the invitation had the photo and said "By Crikey Mate \*name\* is Turning Eight.  The inside contained all the necessary information.    I ordered tableware and decorations (and thank you notes) from www.birthdaydirect.com as they were the only place I could find that had Crocodile Hunter theme ware. They were very quick to deliver and the decorations looked great! 

For goodie bags I got most of the stuff from Oriental Trading Company (plastic crocodiles, snakes, spikers, crocodile yo-yo's and crocodile pencils).  We also threw in a pack of Brach's Crocodile Hunter Gummies into each bag. 

When the kids arrived I took a picture of each of them in the front yard 'wrestling' a large blow-up alligator that we use at the pool.  They each then got a copy in their thank-you notes.  While I was busy in the front greeting guests my husband was busy in the back yard holding spider races (the kids had to place a plastic spider on their nose and race across the yard without dropping the spider).  This kept the kids occupied until the main event started. 

I contacted our local herpetological society (I found them on the internet) and found someone to bring a bunch of reptiles to show and talk about.  He was very inexpensive as he just likes educating people about reptiles.  He brought several snakes, some gecko lizards, a fringe lizard and a few other reptiles and kept the kids entranced for about an hour. 

We then took pictures of each guest holding whichever reptile they wanted.  These were taken on a digital camera that the reptile speaker provided and the pictures were eached saved to an individual floppy disk that we sent home in their goodie bags so they had a photo to show their family that day. 

After that we had cake and ice cream.  As we had a big crowd (16 kids and lots of adults) I made two cakes.  The first was a snake cake that I made using a horseshoe shaped pan.  I cut it in half at the center and made and S shape and frosted it to look like a snake (sorta).  I used a fruit roll-up that I cut out a v out of the end to use for the snake's tongue.  I then put little chocolate poison dart frogs that I made out a frog mold and melted colored chocolate pieces (Wilton) around the snake. 

For the second cake I just made a sheet cake and frosted it all white.  I used an icing gel tinted blue to create a little lake on top.  In the middle of the lake I put a little plastic Steve Irwin wrestling with a crocodile that even spoke some of Steve's famous phrases (from birthdaydirect.com) and then put a couple more crocodiles (same as for the goodie bags) around them.  The cakes carried the theme out perfectly and were very simple to make.