Weekend Whimsy: Trevor's Zoo-themed Birthday

As I've mentioned before, I love planning themed parties!  This year, Trevor chose a zoo theme for his birthday.  We always have two parties for Trevor's birthday- an outdoor BBQ for family, then a separate party for his friends.

Unfortunately, this year it was raining on the day of the BBQ, so we had to move the party indoors. We decorated the house with homemade lions, pandas, monkeys, and giraffes.  I made a banner using animal alphabet letters that I found at Goodnight Stories. 

We played a rousing game of Pin the Banana on the Monkey.

(My husband Steve was clearly not the winner.)

We did a word search that had a hidden message inside.

I made a small error when I created the word search.  From now on, "elephany" is a valid word in family Scrabble games.

We played Zoo Animal Memory.  I revealed 20 stuffed animals and gave everyone two minutes to memorize them.  Then I covered them up and everyone had to write down which ones they remembered. 

The kids did two crafts- first, they used zoo stamps and stickers to decorate plain white treat bags, then they made Zoo Animal Shrinky Dinks.  I printed out some zoo animal shapes, which the kids traced onto shrink plastic.  They colored in their designs, cut them out, and punched a hole.  Everyone gathered around the oven to watch the magic! 

Next, it was time to break the Zebra Pinata.  I'd planned to do this outdoors, but because of the rain we ended up in the garage. 

While the kids were breaking the pinata, a few adults stayed inside to hide candy and presents for our traditional candy hunt. 

Finally, we all enjoyed some giraffe cake. 

For the party with Trevor's friends, we kept things a bit more simple.  We played lots of rounds of Animal Bingo.

We played a simpler version of Animal Memory. 

We used the same animal alphabet from his banner to make goodie bags.

And we served cupcakes inspired by Betty Crocker.

I had a great time planning Trevor's zoo-themed parties!  It was a really easy theme (in contrast to the Maze Party I did last year!) and it turned out really well.  Most importantly, Trevor loved them.