Shrek Party -4yr- Shrek's Swamp Stew

For my sons 4th brithday he wanted a Shrek Party, so we ordered the Shrek cake, got all the decorations and starting brainstorming how to pull this off.  Almost nothing in the stores was Shrek. 

For example, instead of Ice Cream, we made Swamp Stew.  We took some green Jello, and followed the instructions for adding fruits and vegetables but instead we added gummy works and bugs, with the head of at least 1 gummy worm sticking out.  These were a HUGE hit with the kids, especially my son who believes that we got the recipe from Shrek himself. 

Then we came up with out games.  We thought Hot Potato was a great game, but we called it Donkey (no one wants to keep Donkey because he'll get very annoying).  The winner got a prize. 

We then played Find Fiona.  All the kids started with one clue, and went around trying to find Fiona by following the clues.  One clue would be The Shrek ran into Dockey behind the TV, then when you went behind the TV, the next clue was Donkey followed Shrek home under the table, then all the fairy creatures came to the swamp under the chair at the table (the kids enjoyed looking under all the tables), then they went to the castle next to the flower pot (we only had 2), then they found the dragon at the bathroom door, and finally they found Fiona on the Kitchen Counter (we had a picture of Fiona on the Pizza Boxes). 

After having some Pizza we had to "journey" back to the castle.  The Journey was when we played "donkey" (see above) and we also played Pin the Tail on Donkey using a print out of Donkey.  Then we did Cake and "Swamp Stew", and played musical chairs (except we called it "magical Creature Madness) and then everyone sat down and made picture frames for Shrek and Fionas weddings.  We gave each kid 7 large popsicle sticks, (2 for top, 2 for bottom, and 1 for each side, plus one for the back to hold a picture in).  Each kid painted their sticks, glued them in place and decorated with bug stickers.  They got to take those home. 

Finally we did presents and had each person bring their present up and sit next to the Birthday Boy as he opened it and we took a picture.  When we send the tahnk you cards we are also sending that picture.  For the Loot Bags, we put in one "Magical Creature" mask, a YoYo (dragon distrator), a bug slide puzzle (bugs love the swamp) and a rat shaped eraser, as well as a couple other assorted goodies.  The kids loved it, and everything went really well. 

It took very little to really plan it, and we ordered the cake to have a Shrek Toy also.  We had game prizes as well as Door Prizes, and instead of having certain prizes assigned to each thing, each winner got to draw a number that selected their prize (each prize was numbered) so everone had the same chance at each prize.  Every guest won a prize (since we had kids from 2-11 at the party).