Kim Possible -8yr- Pin the Bow on Rufus

We had our daughter's 8th birthday party in the backyard. The theme was Kim Possible.

The party started with pin the bow tie on Rufus, as drawn, colored and prepared by my daughter on a poster board, with bow ties made from one initially drawn as a template, then traced the template on the back of a cereal box as many times as we had guests and colored in> we stuck the ties to Rufus with double sided tape. We had a beanbag throw at plush cheerleader bears, 'cause Kim Possible is a "cheerleader by day, crime fighter by night". The beanbags were made by me from scraps of fabric and filled with rice, the bears were small and couldn't stand on their own, so we set them in Kim Possible paper cups with extra beanbags on the bottom to give them some stability. Each guest got to pick the bear of their choice after playing. We also did sand art with colored sand from and clear star shaped keychains from Oriental Trading.   My daughter had a pair of "Kimunicators" she'd gotten as a gift from family, and she got a call from Wade that the "Secret Plans" were stolen about the time the first 3 activities were ending. It was too big a mission for "Kim" by herself, so all the party goers were asked to help.

They needed to undergo training in order to go on the mission. First came a game we created from something I saw in a magazine--we took the beanbags we used earlier and gave everyone four. Prior to the party we had cut the top off of plastic gallon water jugs, leaving the handles intact. Belts were created by cutting strips from an old shirt of my husband's. These were threaded threw the handles and were used to tie the jugs to the backs of participants. The idea was to have everyone try to get their beanbags into other jugs while avoiding getting any into their own. We played until everyone had gotten rid of all their beanbags, even the ones who had no bags left, because they needed to avoid other beanbags getting into their own jug. After the game we counted how many bags each person had in order to determine the winner. Everyone got to keep the set of beanbags of their choice to take home.  

Then we had relay races--split the kids into three teams, gave three front runners a potato sack, had they had to jump up, around the tree, jump back to the line, and hand off bag to the next person. The second race was with water balloons on top of ice cream cones. Everyone got an icecream cone and water balloon to start. Again, three teams. They had to run up, around the tree, and back without dropping and breaking the balloon. If the balloon broke, they had to return to the beginning, get a new one, and start again.

After they finished, the next person in line ran. Everyone liked both races. There were many water balloons left after the races, so it soon turned into a full blown water balloon fight--a great way to cool off after the races.   We then set up an obstacle course with a tunnel, hula hoops to jump through, a part where players put on monster feet (basically these plastic feet made from plastic flower pots turned upside down with ropes in big circles threaded through the drain holes for the player to hold, and paper claws added to make it look like a monster foot) and had to make their way around obstacles (half gallon plastic jugs filled with colored water), then a little tykes slide, then start again if ya want. 

We did one more game, where we set out one less plate than party participants in a circle to mark places on the grass, then had everyone take a plate and sit and had the birthday girl stand in the middle. We split everyone into teams named after characters from the show, then the person in the middle calls out a team name and those folks (and the person in the middle) have to run and find a (different) empty plate--whoever is left without a plate is in the middle and calls the next name.  

After all that training, everyone was ready for finding the plans. First we looked in Monkey Fist's lair. We had to fight the monkey Minion (a monkey shaped pinata from Oriental Trading), and among the treasures inside was a clue that said Drakken had hidden the plans in his secret laser room. 

We created a "laser" room with red crepe paper strung between the side of the house and the tall shrubs that run along the side of the property--5-6 feet apart at most--with a table holding the secret papers (Kim Possible goody bags) stolen by the bad guy at the other end. (You could do this inside, too) The participants had to make their way through without touching the "laser" beams, and retrieve their secret papers (one goody bag per person).  

This was followed by Bueno nachos, cupcakes baked in ice cream cones with a "c" shaped handle stuck into the side of the cone (made from red licorice whips) and placed on its side to look like a megaphone, and a scoop of ice cream.