Horse Party -7yr- Rope the Cow Game

For the invitations I used colored scrapbook paper, cut and folded it to invitaion size.  I printed off a coloring page online of a cartoon" looking horse.  Then I traced that onto felt cut it out and layered diffrent colors of felt for the hoof and nose.  I used wiggle eyes and yarn for the mane and tale and drew the nostrils on with a sharpie.  I glued this to the front of each invitation.  On the inside I printed  "Howdy partner!  Join us for a little horsin around.  Saddle up and head on over Saturday April 21st.  The mane event is from 2pm to 4pm.  Roundup is at Shelby's place (our address)  Yeighs and Neighs to Shelby's folks (our name and phone number) 

For the plates and such we bought all red white and blue solid colors.  On the table I put a red plastic table cloth and then over that I had bought some blue and white checked material cut into large squares and layed a couple over the red tablecloth.  I glued some extra horses from the invitations to cups to hold the spoons and forks.  I layed around some carrots apples and sugar cubes. 

For decorations we layed around horse shoes rope chaps and ribbons she had won at the roundup club.  At the local party supply store we found blow up horses that we had all around the house to play with.  We turned a rubbermaid tub over and put a saddle blanket and saddle on top.  As each child arrived we took their pic on the horse with a poloraid so they could take it home that day.  Sitting all around the house we had barns tack shops trucks and trailers and of course horses to play with while we waited for the other guests to arrive.  I used more horse shoes to hold the balloons down. 

For games we got a roping dummy (a metal "stick" cow for practice roping) and a rope and let the kids try roping.  Then we had a stick horse race.  To make the stick horses I bought dowel rods and printed off a coloring page of a horse head.  (Don't forget to print half of them as a mirror image so you have 2 sides)  I printed them onto different colors of brown grey and off white.  And colored the mane and eyes.  You could also use yarn for the mane.  Then I just staples 2 heads to the top of a dowel rod.  We broke the kids up into several groups and had stick horse races and canybars for each kid who won.  Then we had a horse come for all the kids to ride. 

For the cake I baked a rectangle cake and cut out the shape of a horse head.  After you cut it you need to put it in the freezer for a couple of hours to make it easier to ice.  On another rectangle cake I frosted it mostly grean and put plastic horses and a fence (that came in a set at the pary supply store).  I frosted a cirlce blue for a pond and put a horse there that had its head down so it looked like it was drinking the water.  Then for dirt in a few places I put some Oreos in the food processor and made a few dirt mounds.  We also had ice cream and I made punch to drink. 

For a goodie bag I used empty TP rolls.  I downloaded a horse toilet paper roll template online and glued one to each roll.  I filled a baggie with lots of candy and stuck it inside the TP roll and tied a ballon to it.  So each child got to take home a horse filled with candy a balloon a pic of them on the saddle and a stick horse. 

For the thank you cards we used the same cardstock as the invitations but instead of the horse like the invitations we put a picture of each child on the horse they rode.  Inside we wrote a personl thank you.  We had SO much FUN!    "