Spongebob 7yr - Krabby Patty Cookoff

Spongebob Squarepants Party - 7 year old:    My nephew was turning 7 and wanted a Spongebob party.  We were limiting the number of kids to 12, but it still felt like way too many!!!  It was nice outside so we had it in the yard. 

DECORATIONS:  We took 2 different colors of blue streamers and taped them all along the fence.  Here and there we used a strip of green to look like seaweed.  I wasn't really fond of the seaweed but my nephew loved it and insisted on it.  It was very windy that day, and it ended up being really cool because the wind made the streamers really look more like water, with the waves going.    We also hung clear balloons here and there to look like bubbles, all along the "water".  I put a sign at the garage door that said "This way to Bikini Bottom" so that everyone would know to go out back.  I took a stove box, cut the bottom out of it, and painted the rest of it to look like Spongebob so I could wear it later.  With the bottom of the box, I cut out a circle, painted it white with a few purple stripes and put "Bikini Bottom" on it, and hung it with rope to the wash pole to look like the Bikini Bottom sign that is in the show - life preserver on a pole.  When the kids arrived, they were welcomed to Bikini Bottom and given a lei to wear. 

When the kids all arrived, we had game time - the first game was an obstacle course, and it was a HUGE hit.  The kids had to run across the yard, spin 3 times around the merry-go-round (which conveniently was a blue Little Tykes octopus so we called him Squidward), go up into the fort, yell "Krabby Patty, Krabby Patty, Krabby Patty!" then go down the slide.  Then they ran back towards the start where I had a piece of plywood setting up agains the house with a picture of Plankton painted on it (very easy, I traced the one end of the ironing board for the shape, flipped it over and traced it again to get his "Twinkie" shape.)  Then they took a water balloon out of a bucket and threw it at Plankton.  To make this go a little faster, we had one kid start, and when he got up to the fort, we started the next kid so there were several kids going at one time.  VERY IMPORTANT!!!  Make sure the water balloons are all filled up before the party - we waited to do this and it took FOREVER to fill them up.  Also, have a lot of balloons!  The kids loved throwing them at Plankton and wanted to do it again and again.  Since we didn't have them filled up before hand, we only had enough to let each child run the course two times. 

After the obstacle course, we did a Krabby Patty game.  I got this idea from another party submission.  I sewed up some patties out of inexpensive material.  One side was dark brown for the cooked side and one side was pink for the raw side.  I also made buns out of tan material, drew sesame seeds on the top bun and also stuffed it a little more than the bottom one.  I used rice to stuff everything.  We cut lettuce and tomatoes out of red and green felt, and used yellow yarn for mustard and red yarn for ketchup.  I have a huge roll of paper that I got from the local newspaper company here, it's called an "end roll", it's the leftover paper from the machine, most newspaper companys will give these away for free.  I used the paper from that roll to make a tablecloth with lines on it to look like a grill.  The kids were divided into two teams.  Two of them would go up to the grill, flip their patty from the raw side to the cooked side with a spatula, then put it on the bottom bun and head to the condiment table.  They had to build their patty exactly the way it was supposed to be - we hung signs in front of the tables so they could reference.  When their patty was done, they put it into a paper bag, and handed it to an adult "customer" and then the next person would go. 

Next was the bubble blowing.  Each child got a little bottle of bubbles.  I memorized the bubble blowing technique from the spongebob episode "Bubble Stand".  I made each kid go through the motions with me before they could blow "the perfect bubble".    Jellyfish race:  We divided into two teams.  I blew up red balloons and stuck 4 strands of red yarn on each to look like a jellyfish.  The kids had to hit the jellyfish across the yard using a plastic tennis racquet, and then hit it back to the start so the next person could go.  We had back-up jellyfish incase they broke during hitting.  Krab walk - IMPORTANT!!  We bought 4 cheap oven mitts to be used for this so their hands weren't dirty for later on.  Had teams again, and one from each team would crab walk to a point in the yard and back with the mitts on their hands. 

PINATA:  I'm not a fan of having them hit an actual animal pinata, but we figured making a Plankton pinata would be appropriate!  I took 2 balloons and taped them together and then covered them with paper mache' to make a Plankton shape.  There is a wonderful recipe for the paper mache paste on the Family Fun website, it's very smooth and easy to do.  After putting 2 layers on, I wrapped twine around the entire length of him a few times and left a lot of excess to be able to hang him.  Then I taped on empty toilet paper roll tubes to make his arms and legs.  Then did 2 more layers of paper mache' on top of that.  When dry, cut a hole in the top and fill with candy. 

Tape the piece you cut out back on, and then I painted the entire thing green.  I just glued on circles of regular white paper for his eyes, drew on a frowning mouth, and then stuck 2 green pipe cleaners in the top of his head for his antennea.  Since I had done at least 4 layers of paper mache', he was pretty strong and it gave quite a few kids a chance to hit.  I didn't think though about these kids being older, so some of the boys were pretty good swingers.  After the birthday boy hit, we decided to let the girls and the younger kids go next so it would last longer. 

While the kids were eating up some of their candy, I went to change into the Spongebob costume.  I wore the box, painted with Spongebob's face and shirt, and I wore tan shorts.  I couldn't figure out how to make my arms and legs yellow, so I bought some white pantyhose and a cheap pair of white gardening gloves.  I dyed them all yellow, then wore the one pair of pantyhose, and the other I cut the toes and waist off of them and covered my arms with them so it made my arms look yellow.  Also, the 70's style striped tube socks were hard to come by, so I wore a pair of my husband's socks and took some blue painter's tape and made 2 stripes around the top of them.  We took everyone's picture with me in my outfit and sent a copy along with the thank you cards. 

FOOD:  I made the Spongebob cake off of the Nick Jr. website, VERY easy to do but a little time consuming.  The kids LOVED it, it looked exactly like Spongebob.  I had also made some green twinkies - I got the recipe from the "Top Secret Recipes" book, and just added green food coloring so they looked like little planktons.  We made blue jello and stuck gummy fish inside of it before it was set, and had them in little cups so everyone got their own little "aquarium" to take home.  We also had the Cheese-Nips that were shaped like Spongebob characters, and seanut butter and jellyfish jelly sandwiches (pb&j with the crusts cut off, I used my cut & sealer from Pampered Chef to make little circles). 

We also had "seaweed soda".  I have a fountain machine in my kitchen, and I made some syrup out of lemon-lime kool-aid.  This made soda that tastes like Sprite but is green.  We got pineapple-shaped drinking cups from Oriental Trading for them to drink out of and also take home.  When I do a party, I like the challenge of having an extremely memorable party and spending as little as possible - so I made the table cloth for the eating time as well.  I used the same end-roll paper and printed off pictures of characters off the internet, traced them here and there on the big piece of paper and then colored them in (with some help from the kids!)  We filled in the blank spaces between the pictures with little jellyfish, since they were pretty easy to draw. 

Treat Bags:  We got bright yellow bags for everyone and put in a few spongebob toys, stickers, and some SB gummies.  They also got to take home their bottle of bubbles, pineapple cup, and their krabby patty.  I had also taken baby food jars, cleaned them, painted the lids pink and filled them with strawberry jelly and put on a home-made label saying "Jellyfish Jelly", they got to take that along as well.  Needless to say, they were going home with quite a bit!  

Next time, there are a few things I would do differently to make things go more smoothly, like pre-make the pb&j's and also do the water balloons the night before, but otherwise it went very well.  My nephew LOVED it and I'm sure it was much more memorable than a trip to Chuck E Cheese!