Kim Possible - Monkey Fist Obstacle Course

My daughter chose Kim Possible for her birthday theme. We started with invitations that looked like Kimmunicators. 

\* Kimmunicators were cut from turquise cardstock. For the right shape I printed a picture I cut and paste from the web and traced it on to the cardstock which had been folded in half (so the invitations opened). I used Word to create the oval "buttons" and cut them out. Using a cut and pasted picture from an online toy store, I found a picture of Wade and printed those out for the front of the Kimmunicator (Wade at the keyboard). The inside information was printed on vellum, cut to fit, and pasted on using a Xyron adhesive. Font called "Radio Stars" closely matched the Kim Possible font and the wording began with "What's the sitch, Wade?" It then described the "mission" including time, meeting place, estimated end time for pick up, and to dress for action because the mission included crafty projects, villain chasing games and bounce through Drakken's Lair (bounce house).

\* As kids arrived there were 2 craft tables set up. The first was to use permenant markers to decorate a foam "goodie bag" (Oriental Trading Company). 2nd table was to decorate an insert for a color-your-own sipper cup (Oriental Trading Company). There were Kim Possible stickers and watercolor markers out to color the printed inserts with each child's name. (Stickers from the local dollar store, names printed in Word and cut to fit inside the cups). Once both crafts were done the kids bounced in the bounce house until everyone had arrived and done both crafts.

\* Kids carried goodie bags through several games where they were given "prizes" for playing (building goodie bags as they went instead of getting everything as they left for home). Each game had a poster with the villain on it (drawn by tracing the characters from web printed pictures on to transparency, blown up onto posterboard using an overhead machine, and then painted).

GAME 1 - DNAmy's plush shoot. Using foam finger rockets (Oriental Trading Company) the kids shot at little beanie babies and then put their rocket in their bag.

GAME 2 - Duff Killigan's putting. Plastic golf balls from discount store hit with kids' golf clubs towards a hoola hoop while I counted to five. 2 kids went at a time and when I was done counting we simply counted how many were in the hoop (no "winner"). When the kids gathered the balls and brought them back for the next person they were then given a 1-minute timer (Oriental Trading Company) as the prize to put in their bag.

GAME 3 - Monkey Fist obstacle course. Fortunately, we live next door to a park so the birthday girl lead the way through the Monkey Fist obstacle course and were given disk shooters (OTC) on their way back through the gate.

GAME 4 - Gill water balloon toss. Each child got 2 water balloons to toss at a "swamp" (blue plastic tablecloth bunched up with a hoold hoop set on top). Prize was a water yo-yo (OTC).

GAME 5 - Drakken's Lair (bounce house). Coming back through the garage, the kids were given the prize of a yellow cheerleader pom pom and they posed for a picture with a 5' foam core image of Kim Possible in cheerleader uniform (also drawn using an overhead projector). Pom Poms were put in their bags and left by the entrance and the kids went on to the bounce house while we set up cake and punch.

\* Cake and punch was served using the sipper cups the kids had colored when they first arrived. Cake was white frosting with purple piping from a local grocery store bakery and we added a Kim Possible compact from them as well. I also had little action figures from the Disney store and I added a Kim, Ron and Rufus (love that little neked mole rat). Had the cake not worked, I had also thought of getting yellow and purple cupcakes and arranging them so the yellow were pom poms and the purple were the handles.

\* Presents. While the cake and punch settled a bit, we went inside to open presents. Instead of having all the kids crowd around, we set the birthday girl in a big chair and as I handed her a gift the person who brought that gift went to stand next to her and we took a picture. This allowed the gift giver to be up front and close when the birthday child opened their gift and they seemed to like that.

\* End - after presents were opened the kids all went back out to the bounce house to jump until parents came. To each goodie bag I added a cellophane bag with more goodies: some candy, a small beach ball (OTC), Kim Possible stickers (ebay), flashlight (OTC) and pencil (OTC).

\* Thank you cards - I'll get the Kim Possible posed pictures of each child printed and use those as the thank you cards. I was going to use them as post cards but then realized I'd have a child's picture and name out in the open and decided that wasn't such a good idea, so I'll put them inside a thank you card instead. The kids all had a great time, the parents thanked me for including parting gifts that could actually be used instead of sending them home with whistles or little things that just get tossed in the trash.