kate's online space: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: Grant's 4th B-day Party!

Earlier this year, we came across this book entitled The Backyardigans Secret Spy Agents. It was such a hit with my secret spy boys that I thought of the idea to base Grant's 4th b-day around it. The party was super fun, and as always- I really enjoyed putting it all together. Some parents like to make things for their children, such as blankets or clothing....I do parties for mine! :)

INVITATIONS: I forgot to take a pic of them, but I just hand printed them on these blank white puzzles, then broke them apart and put them in envelopes for the children to put together. They were definitely costly to mail, but thankfully we were able to hand-deliver most of them.

Suspicious looking footprints led the way to our backyard gate where guests were greeted with this:

Homemade signs read: SPIES ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT and MISSION: GRANT'S 4TH BIRTHDAY PARTY!. Yellow tape read: INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS.

Used more of the yellow tape and red crepe paper across our backyard patio posts. Balloons in yellow, black as well as penguin spy ones from the movie Madagascar were added to each post as well.

I always try to have some type of ice breaker in place for the guests to do while we wait for everyone to arrive. For Christmas my sister gifted us this I SPY game, which fit perfectly with our theme and held the attention of 4 year olds quite well. Mini magnifying glasses were found here for kids to use during their search, as well as double as table centerpieces.

Loved this fun tablecloth (note that the top layer is clear, so as suggested by Oriental Trading Co, I backed it with another tablecloth in solid yellow).

Activity here was for all of the secret agent spies to make their own name badges. I pre-printed the guests names on plain white paper, cut them out, then had the children stamp their thumbprint on it with this inkless stamp pad (figured it could be kinda messy to have kids running around with ink on their fingers!) Second basket contained black gloves for all of the spies to wear when handling the precious diamonds (which was an idea that came from the previously mentioned spy book).

Here's a shot of the cool laser beams Bart created on the fly just about 20 minutes before the party....I just gave him some red string and the garden stakes and told him to think Catherine Zeta Jones in the movie Entrapment. ;) Our secret spies had to carefully step through each laser beam so that they could return the diamonds to the Museum.

Here's a shot of the party table inside. I was beyond thrilled when Lees told me they had the secret agent Madagascar penguins as a cake topper! Also glad I listened to my Mom when she suggested I just order a cake....on busy days like this, it's important to know which things to outsource. ;)

Snack bags and table covering (which is drop paper from Lowes btw) were stamped with this cool TOP SECRET stamp which has also come in handy for the thank you cards. Spy Snack Sacks contained the following:

Pretzel Shields (pretzels), Spy Sticks (carrots), Red Laser Beam Jello (strawberry jellos), Secret Punch (Fruit punch juice packs) and Chocolate Mystery Cake for dessert!

After snacks and cake were served, the secret agents had one last mission to complete...to find their Secret Spy Bags (aka goody bags). I came up with 4 clues (since Grant was turning 4) that I placed ahead of time around our backyard.