Jungle Mini-Golf 5th Birthday Party

When Mikie told me that he wanted another mini-golf birthday party this year, I can honestly say that I wasn't surprised. The child lives and breathes (and just recently dreams) mini-golf. I was also not surprised by his choice of a jungle theme. Two of his favorite animals are jaguars and elephants. I used that as an inspiration for the invitations which I sent all folded up with writing on both sides of the golf ball:

Let out a roar, get ready to score, at Mikie's 5th birthday, jungle/safari mini-golf par-tee.

It took us almost 11 hours to set up this year. We decorated from 11 am until 10 pm and then went home and decorated the cakes until 2:00 in the morning. Even though that seems late, it was still 2 hours earlier than last year's 4:00am finish time.

Mikie sees his golf course for the first time:

Welcome to the jungle:

Monkeys hung from the lights:

Butterflies flew in circles attached to the ceiling fans

Grab a ball, club, scorecard and personalized pencil:

I made the scorecards with my cricut:

Practice hole:

Hole #1 JAGUAR:

The jaguar tail spiraled around as an obstacle:

Zachary shows you how it's done:

Tate may start to enjoy this sport after all:Hole #2 GIRAFFE

Felt mats at each tee area to match the theme:

Hole #3 ELEPHANTS

Super Boagie (my mom) turned our card table into an elephant:

Mikie said that was his favorite hole.

Hole #4 ZEBRA

This hole had two log tunnels:

A frog popped out of the hole this year:

Hole #5 SNAKES

Mikie wanted the last hole to "eat the balls" so we turned a dryer vent hose and funnel into a hungry snake.

The hallway was lined with jungle print paper and lit by black lights again. This year rain forest sounds played on the hidden sound machine.

There were 4 different crafts for the kids to make, but my boys weren't interested in any of them. They played mini-golf from the moment they walked in the door until the time we had to tear it all down. Here are the crafts the other kids enjoyed:

Footprint Bookmarks: I found the cutest elephant and gorilla rubber figurines that had stamps for feet.

These cute animal stand-ups were made by punching out and assembling a giraffe, a lion, an elephant, and a jaguar (cheetah actually).

There were jungle picture frames to color.

Wiggly wooden snakes were fun to paint and then watch glow under the blacklights in hole five.

Michael's niece Caitlin used face paint to turn the kids into jungle animals.

Lenny puts the animals on the rainforest flannel board.

Games:

Dig through the grass & golf balls in the bucket to find one animal that was represented from each hole.

Pin the ball in the hole. Choice of 4 different holes with matching ball: Zebra, Tiger, Jaguar, Giraffe.

The blindfold was an elephant mask with the eye holes covered.

Feed the Hungry Elephant: Toss peanuts into the elephant bag.

Pass the camera (like hot potato) and look inside to see a jungle animal. Find the jungle animal around the room and then go rescue a stuffed animal from under a net.

The prizes & crafts: Widlife bags, stuffed animal, trumpeting elephant, elephant blow-out, stickers, 5 plastic animals, slap bracelet, animal punching baloon.

I found animal skin print material that matched each of the themes of the 5 holes so I used them as tablecloths.

The golf ball lollipops were such a huge hit last year, I had to do them again. This year, I added a bag of peanuts as the elephant food.

The golf ball chocolates made another appearance this year.

Right before I moved from Whidbey Island 3 years ago, I suggested to my very dear friend, Amber, that we should visit each other every January and May for our boys' birthdays. She agreed to the idea and has made it to every birthday party since. Thanks so much, Amber! We are all blessed by your friendship and Mikie is so grateful to get to celebrate with his favorite friend.

Did I mention she flew out here this time with two kids AND she was 6 months pregnant? Yes, she is an AWESOME friend!

The Food:

Among all the other major and minor details of the party that couldn't be completed with my fabulous mother, the food has/is/always will be (please?) her specialty. I didn't get a chance to set out any of the food before the guests started arriving, and by the time I made my way over there, Super Boagie had it all laid out. Of course, I like sticking with the theme:

The Prey: bone-in ham

Snake Dogs

Gorilla Pops: Chocolate Covered Bananas

Jaguar Tails: Breadsticks with Olives

Jungle Hummus Dip with butterfly crackers and celery trees and broccoli bushes.

Snake Eggs: hard boiled eggs

Python Pasta Salad with snake shaped noodles.

Pepper Butterflies

Animal crakers in Safari Hats

Cheese Animals with Pretzle Trees

I had a lot of fun thinking of all the food to represent the theme, but most of those ideas came from the internet. The one thing I am going to claim bragging rights to is my cake idea.

(Super Boagie made the jungle print tablecloth)

It's not so much the outside of my cake that is originial, but the insides. Let me explain: Mikie wanted 5 cakes because he's five (I'm telling people it was his idea, but I think you know who the real crazy person is). I wanted each cake to be decorated like the animal at each hole and found edible images that just happen to be sold in the exact three degsigns I needed (jaguar, giraffe, and zebra). For the elephant, I used gray frosting and gave it texture with a paper towel. For the snake, I made grass and snakes from hard icing.

The tree was made from rice krispies, peanut butter, corn syrup, and chocolate candy melts.

The golf balls are candles.

The rocks around the green are edible and the hole is an olive.

Mikie's cake was so enormous, that it hid him when he sat down.

As I was designing this cake in my mind, I suddenly had the urge to make the INSIDE of each cake match the theme of the animal on the outside. So, my elephant cake was a peanut butter cake (becuase elephants eat peanuts):

The Zebra cake was striped with black and white layers:

The Jaguar Cake was butter pecan with spots of chocolate chips and butterscotch chips:

The Giraffe Cake was a chocolate and yellow checkerboard:

And Mikie wanted a pink cake so the snake cake was pink:

This party, like all my other parties, wouldn't have been nearly as fun, nearly as fancy, run nearly as smoothly, or have nearly as much detail without all the help from my mom. She's not only Mikie's Super Boagie, but she's my SuperMOM too! I love you, Mom! THANK YOU!!!!!

Mikie, we love you so much and hope you had a jungle-riffic fifth birthday party!

If you'd like to see all these pictures set to music, you can watch them on my photoshow website (look at my favorite sites in the right margin)