A 5th Birthday Party ... Somewhere Over The Rainbow

To be honest, when Little Lady requested a Rainbow-themed 5th Birthday party (months ago!), I was pretty stoked. The Rainbow allows for no-brainer decor, is easy to work with for games, and awesome for using up a lot of my fabric/sewing supplies laying around. 
It was a win/win all around, and turned out to be a ton of fun packed into 2 chaotic hours that left us all still groggy this morning!

So, here's the details, should you need inspiration for an all-things Rainbow party in your future...!
(Click on images to enlarge)

The Food: aren't you supposed to eat a rainbow of produce everyday or something?! If that's true, then I think this spread would have been personal trainer approved. And certainly busy-Mom-approved, since it took about 20 minutes to put together. Sliced fruit and mostly straight-from-the-bag veggies in rainbow order and you can call it good.
Red: Strawberries & Cherry Tomatoes
Orange: Clementine Slices & Carrots
Yellow: Mango & Yellow Bell Pepper
Green: Kiwi & Sugar Snap Peas
Blue: Blueberries & Beet chips (kinda purple actually)

I also added hummus & colorful vegetable chips (I don't remember the brand name, but they're all root vegetables, so gluten free, naturally flavorful and awesome). Done and done.
A rainbow-colored assortment of Izze Sodas would have been fun, but I opted for budget-friendlier & non-sticky water. 
We had 2 dozen Cake pops in a rainbow (made by the lovely & talented Suga Me Sweet here in Denver) and a cake cut into a 5 with rainbow-patterned M&M's (the little ones can help with that job!). 
PS--good thing I didn't go into the cake-making business, even a little 6 year-old dude called me out on making the 5 look like an S. sheesh! The Games were at least a homerun...

The Games: Pin the Pot 'O Gold is cheap & easy to prepare: I just blew the black & white clipart-type image to 24"x36" and had it printed as an Engineering Print at Staples for about $3. Little Lady went to town coloring it and tracing the image with Sharpie, so it didn't matter that the enlargement made it pixelated. Then make a PDF of Pots of Gold, print 'em out and embellish with some metallic pens & kids names and you've got a winner of a game!

Limbo under the Rainbow, anyone?? (Just fabric scraps wrapped around a dowel rod I already had on hand-and an instant home run judging by all the giggles it garnered!)

What's a Rainbow without a Pot of Gold at the end of it?! And if I know Toddlers, they love a good treasure hunt. This took a lot of parental supervision, making sure each child had a turn to find a clue and making sure the rhyming clues were actually understood. (things get a bit jacked up when I try to rhyme, let's just put it that way!)
Each clue had a part of the rainbow they had to glue in place, and it all ended with individual pots of chocolate Gold Coins in the mailbox.

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The Favors: The pots of chocolate coins were favors to take home after the treasure hunt, but we also made some really simple Rainbow Ribbon Twirlers (even the boys dug 'em). I got a couple dowel rods cut into 8" pieces, taped and painted the bottom 3" and used matching ribbon I already had. (Little Lady actually did the painting) I decided the eyelet hook screw (is that a thing?!) wouldn't give optimal twirl-ability if I just tied the ribbon to it, so I attached a key ring to each hook at the top of each dowel and sewed the ribbon to attach. They twirled perfectly ;)

And just for fun, we made a Rainbow wall for a photo back drop on a tall wall in our home. I managed to get each child's picture taken on the bench, and I'll send a copy of it with the corresponding thank you notes. 

I can't believe we have a 5-year old Kindergartner already!!! Very worthy of a celebration! But in my opinion, there's never a reason too small to throw a party. They gather people, they foster fun and cater to community. Here's to more parties--whatever the occasion!!