The Little Sewing Shop: Levi's 8th Birthday Camping Party

Levi had a wonderful birthday weekend, and turned 8yrs old! He chose a camping theme this year so we had his party at a local park near the water. It was a lot of work but all came together in the end, the kids really enjoyed themselves. Our friend James decided to help me get organized for the party, and set it up, and clean it up, and even take some pictures! It was very helpful to have backup this year, the party turned out great!

My favorite camper in his mommy made outfit. The shirt stayed on for all of 30 seconds, and everything was covered in water and dirt 10 seconds after that.

And I look like a weirdo here, but was convinced to get my picture taken with my not-so-little guy.

Camp Levi signs

Our "campsite" camp #8 of course.

This one I made for his 2nd birthday, before I had a decent sewing stash, or sewing machine, and these colors no longer suit Levi, but I still pull this out every year!

Levi decided we needed "rules" so this is what we came up with.

And he said kids needed to "sign in" (I suppose like they do at his lifeguard camp)

The kids each got a red or blue strip of fabric tied around their wrist for their "team" and had a painter's tape name tag.

The food:

Cake:
This is a vegan chocolate cake, with melted vegan marshmallows and graham cracker. I made the tiny tent, and the fire pit is pretzels. Its much messier than I intended, however, it was made at 1am so not so bad. It tasted good! I also made healthier banana cupcakes with chocolate icing, which we put on the "tent" cupcake stand from last year's birthday.

Ants on a log (made with sunbutter)

Can you see my mistake on this sign? No one seemed to notice, I didn't see it until the day after I made it. Too much work to change it! Make your own s'mores station included marshmallows, chocolate chips, crasins, and sunbutter. Kids put their toppings in an ice cream cone, wrapped in foil and put on the grill to heat. Yum!

Baked beans, which no one really ate, even though they were really good! My dad's recipe. I also made corn which was re-heated on the grill, manned by our friend Ted from church.

We also had bunny food (carrots/hummus), birdseed (sunflower seeds), and various trail mixes. I brought along 3 jugs of water, one with orange in it, and another with a "green juice" blend thrown in (made it taste like fruit water, but look like swamp water). Kids and adults were reluctant to taste that one, and one guest ran out to get extra water (Thank you Laurie!)

The first main activity was a scavenger hunt. James and I found a bunch of random "stuff" that started with different letters. He hid these along with our ransom note tags in two different colors. Each team had to find the items, pull off the tag, and bring it back to the apple boxes. There, they had to unscramble to spell the word "birthday". It was a tie! An exciting finish as both teams got the word spelled at the same time.

The kids had time to hang out at "camp"

Making friendship bracelets in the "arts and crafts tent"

Playing in the river. (Levi was full on swimming, everyone else just waded!

Eating and chatting while making s'mores cones

Trying out the slackline

Cake time!

Levi enthusiastically sang "Happy birthday to ME!" along with all of his friends.

The next activity was a watermelon explosion. This looked much better on youtube than it turned out in real life, but still had an interesting result.

This is what it was supposed to look like:

First, I chose a watermelon. People thought I was awfully strange putting rubberbands on watermelons in Publix, and then taking pictures. I ended up choosing the bigger one.

You can see our problem started right away, the kids didn't get the rubber bands all in one spot on the watermelon. Because they were spread out, the pressure wasn't all in one spot.

Different kids, and finally a few adults worked on this the rest of the party!

Levi didn't help much, he was too busy eating cake.

Back to the watermelon later, it took a long time....

Meanwhile, the next activity started, obstacle course!
Kids had to weave, step, hop, fill a cup with water, carry it over their head and fill up a bucket.

Back to the watermelon....

Finally, someone gave it a good whack and it split in half, much to the delight of the kids who got to finally eat the watermelon. Because of the "squishing" a lot of juice same out too, so they drank that up.

Me scooping while now muddy Levi drinks watermelon juice.

I set the watermelon on the picnic table while the kids continued to eat. Scooping out some of the melon must have weakened the half that was left with rubber bands still on it, because while we were gathered round, all of a sudden it gave way sending watermelon flying. The spoon, which had been sitting in the watermelon, held all the rubber bands. It was crazy!

This is my favorite picture of the day. My crazy mess boy, and his bewildered friends.

For whatever reason, we didn't get any pictures, but another thing we did at the end of the party was water balloons!   James made a contraption with an exercise band and a funnel that shot water balloons an amazing distance.   3 people launched, and the kids tried their best to get splattered.    Fun stuff.

Lots of work planning, carrying everything, running activities, making food, and cleaning it all up.    But Levi went home tired, happy, and of course, a complete mess!    Thank you to all our wonderful friends who helped with the party, and came out to celebrate with Levi.   Happy Birthday Levi!

Bonus pics!    A friend sent me some of the pics she took...

The other tent...