Davy Crockett 3yr - Grissly Bear Pinata

INVITATIONS: For my son's 3rd birthday party, we decided to do a Davy Crockett theme for him.  First, we created our invitations on the computer by finding a picture of Davy Crockett holding up his old rifle, Betsy.  Our invitation was worded: Davy Crockett, king of the Wild Frontier, Invites you to dress up as your favorite pioneer. Whether you travel by horseback, foot or water vessel, it's worth the trip to see the bar (bear) we will wrestle! So track on over to the mountaintops of Tennessee, so we can celebrate Owen turning three!  Meet up at Grand Bay WMA on Saturday, April 12th at high noon.  Beware of the Bars! 

LOCATION: We had the party at a local Wildlife Management Agency for several reasons.first, because they had a several picnic tables underneath a large shelter with plenty of room for the kids to run around.  And there was rarely anyone else out there.  Also, it had a long boardwalk over a swamp that ended at an old fire tower.  We let the kids run up the steps after the party was over.  They loved being so high in the air and looking down at everything.  And finally, a Davy Crockett party HAS to be outdoors! 

COSTUMES: It was a blast to see how the kids would be dressed.  Some arrived wearing coon-skin caps like Davy would have and some were wearing cowboy attire.  One was dressed as Jim Bowie carrying a long play knife, but most all of them carried a toy gun of some size in the event they came across a bar!!

CAKE: For the cake, I made The Alamo by baking 3 rectangular 9x12 cakes and stacking them on top of each other.  I made the middle layer chocolate for the chocolate lovers!  I tinted my vanilla frosting with a little bit of copper colored tint and then iced the three layers.  Then I made a batch of rice crispy candy and used a knife to cut out the shape of the top of the Alamo.  I placed two toothpicks on the underside of the rice crispy shape to secure it to the cake.  I researched what the flag looked like that flew over the Alamo, printed it out on cardstock, glued it to a toothpick, and put it on the top of the Alamo arch. I also ordered a 55 piece Alamo fighter play set from Amazon and placed the figurines all over the top of the cake & all along the bottom.  I also made ladders that were propped up on the sides of the Alamo by using Pringles snack sticks and a batch of royal icing to glue the sticks together in the shape of a ladder.  Pirouette cookies were used to form the Alamo columns and melted chocolate formed the door & window shapes.  Finally, I crushed up a package of graham cracker crumbs and spread them around on the bottom of the Alamo as the dirt.  The boys loved the fighter men, and the cake was delicious! 

FAVORS: Since the invitation wording said the kids would wrestle a bar, I made a grizzly bear head pinata by blowing up a large latex balloon and gluing newspaper strips around the balloon using Elmer's glue until I had about 3 layers of paper strips (make sure each layers dries thoroughly before applying the next layer of newspaper strips & glue).  Then I glued dark brown tissue paper for the fur and added two large wiggly eyes for the bear's eyes.  I molded play dough into the shape of the bear's nose, then I depressed the play dough using a Q-tip to form the nostrils, and painted a shiny black coat of paint onto the nose and secured it with superglue.  I also used red play dough to make a tongue for the grizzly, and I flattened & cut mini-marshmallows to use as the pointy teeth.  I filled the pinata with candy and various food items such as small boxes of raisins and granola bars (little flashlights would've been a great addition to the candy mix as something Davy would've like to have while he was hunting)!  Since the Davy Crockett theme song goes he killed him a bar when he was only three we used a wooden rifle to hit the pinata instead of a stick.  The kids LOVED it! 

GAMES: We played one game called don't wake up the mean Grizzly.  We had a father volunteer to be the mean grizzly, and we blindfolded him and sat him in the middle of the children.  We placed keys in front of the sleeping grizzly and each kid took a turn trying to sneak the keys away from the Grizzly before we awoke.  The grizzly was to growl and try to figure out where the kid was who was taking the keys.  The kids loved making the grizzly irritated.    ACTIVITY: At the conclusion of the party, the kids all took a Davy-like excursion to the top of the old fire tower at the end of the boardwalk while eating their pinata candy and shooting their play rifles!