Candyland Party (Behind the Scenes)

I threw my last post about Elizabeth's Candyland Party up in a bit of a rush...so I thought I'd take a minute and post a few details about the set up and the party itself.

We were EXTREMELY lucky that the weather was GORGEOUS for the event! With a mid-November birthday, it could have gone either way! But it was truly beautiful!

Since the weather cooperated, we were happy to hold much of the party OUTDOORS! (Thank goodness we did, too...b/c 13 kids and their moms and a couple of dads would have been a LOT to cram into our lovely, but modest home for TWO HOURS!)

After leaf-blowing the yard (thanks, Pop-Pop!)...
...Daddy put up (and repaired some small holes in) the inflatable bounce house/slide. (No, we did not hook up the water feature! It was nice FALL weather, but still only 60-degrees!) This gave the kids a place to play and bounce and burn off energy! They LOVED it!
Then Grammy and I went to work putting colored foam squares down to make a Candyland game path up the walkway to the door.
I stuck my homemade lollipops (circular styrofoam disks from Michael's...wrapped in colored cellophane and skewered with wooden dowels) in the front flowerbed to create our "Lollipop Woods", and arranged the upside-down sand pails (spray-painted with silver glitter to give them a shimmering sugar look) into a "Gumdrop Pass" next to the walkway.

We also duct taped colored foam squares in a circle to create the "Candyland Carousel" game. (See below for a demonstration!)
I also staked out (literally) a spot for the Sack Race and put out some sacks that I purchased on clearance at the end of the summer from World Market! Woohoo!
The kids seemed to love it all...and the bounce house was definitely an obvious WIN with everyone! But I was surprised by how popular my simple little game of "Candyland Carousel" was with the kids! I just put on some music ("Lollipop, Lollipop") and had the kids walk around in a circle. When the music stopped, they froze on a square while I pulled a Candyland game card. Whoever was standing on the color (or special icon square) that I called out won a present to unwrap! Even after winning their one allotted prize, the kids still wanted to play the game! (I came up with this as an "indoor" alternative game, but ended up moving it outside since the weather was so nice! Worked beautifully!...see for yourself!) :-)