Puppy Party

Jane loves 3 things the most - horses, babies and dogs.

She had a horse cake last year and I thought a baby party for a 4 year old would be strange - so we settled on dogs. Fitting, as we are getting a puppy at the end of June.

The first thing I did was contact Angie from blonde designs. I was fortunate to get to know Angie when we lived in Brooklyn, and have been continually amazed by her ever since. I knew she had to be my source for cute invitations.

They were adorable & Jane was delighted.

(the real invitation had our phone number on it - I just edited it out for the blog.)

I decided to make it be like a dog obedience school and they would all be the dogs and would have to complete a series of "dog training." I made each child a small booklet and bought a set of dog themed stamps. Each task had a page and they earned a different stamp for each one.

To start off they had to become a dog. We did face painting and they could make a collar from construction paper, stickers & glue on sequins.

Some kids loved the face painting.

Some - not so much.

Emily painted herself to look like an Entlebucher Mountain Dog - the breed we are getting.

What do you think? Does she look like one?

I think if I were to do this again, I would make them all some form of felt ears or something else to become dogs and skip the face painting. My kids LOVE to have their face painted, so I had no idea so many kids would be freaked out by it.

Fetch.

I had rolled several newspapers (one for each child) and we made three teams. Kind of like a relay each child had to run and fetch a paper and when they were back the next person could go. Once the whole team was done they sat down. First team all sitting down was the winner. They loved it - even though in the excitement, the whole concept of not going until the next person got back got a little blurred ....

Retrieving.

I know, technically the same as fetch, but I was looking for activities 3 & 4 yr old's could do so I gave it a new name! I bought a bunch of rawhide bones (we can use them for our dog later) and hid them all around the yard. Once they had found one, they could come and get that stamp in their book.

They were really into getting the little books & getting their stamps.

 

Playing at the dog park.

Which was really musical puppies. Thank goodness we own more stuffed animal dogs than any one family really should!

We walked in a circle around the dogs to music. When the music stopped - rush in and grab a dog. The person without a dog was "out." There was one less dog each time, until we were down to the "winner." It got a little crazy but they all loved it.

Housebreaking.

(I had to put it in there - the stamp set had a fire hydrant!)
OK, no pictures of this one. We took everyone to the bathroom who need to go and everyone washed their hands to eat. Which they were happy to do for another stamp!

Beg.
I had them all "beg" before they ate, which they thought was hilarious. They got a bone & dog bowl stamps in their books for this.

Angie made me water bottle labels too. They were super cute. Normally we would not use plastic bottles - but I thought that this could be an exception. Water is healthy and I probably would have used disposable cups for a party anyway .....

I tried to keep it as dog themed as possible - but made sure we had a few healthy choices. I had extra mini sugar cookies (the bones) from the goody bags to serve too.

Scooby Snacks in a dog bowl were a hit.

So were the "bone" sandwiches

and the "pup cakes."

For the cake, I copied the puppy from Angie's invite.

It turned out well (if I do say so myself!)

Jane thought it was a great puppy cake!

I'm pretty sure she wished for a real puppy. So glad it's one that can really come true.

After the food we played "Pass the Puppy." They all sat in a circle and passed the dog around, if you were holding the dog when the music stopped you were out.

Then I read them "Pretzel" by Margaret & H.A Ray while we waited for their parents to arrive.

My kids LOVE that book - and so did everyone at the party.

Goody Bags.

These were supposed to be their reward for completion of dog obedience school. If I had thought of it sooner, I would have made them all diplomas.

I made small paw print tags for each child with their name. I love personalized things!

I am in favor of simple theme centered goody bags. With that in mind we put in dog stickers, a very bouncy ball, a bag of mini dog cookies (with tags by Angie) and a Ty beanie baby dog.

They all seemed to like them and I've heard from many parents that their child is quite attached to the little puppy we put inside.

All in all it was a successful party. How do I know?

This little happy puppy told me!