First, we got a roll of yellow table cover roll (100 feet) and rolled it out starting from the front of our driveway and put a sign next to it that said "Follow the Yellow Brick Road." I used blue gingham paper and cut out 1/2" strips to make a border on white cardboard that I got from Michael's. Here is a picture of Riley with it.
All the kids and parents followed the yellow brick road through a balloon arch that we were able to put together at home (well, Gramie and John did that!). We just got the balloons (with helium) and bought a clear decorating strip from PC and threaded the balloons through the strip. Here is a picture of Riley walking with her friend Audrey towards the arch.
When the kids came in, we had them all find their red ruby flip flops to decorate. We figured since it was the middle of July, that would be a good compromise. Plus we had boys coming to the party so we didn't want to do "slippers." Here is a picture of the flip flops and one of a basket of ruby red socks that we got for the younger siblings (aged 4 months - almost 2). The kids also decorated their own gift bags (I got plain white gift bags from Michaels).
We had the kids decorate at the beginning of the party and put them aside to dry during the party. Once all the kids were there and done with decorating, we took them in the front yard to play the Witch's Broom and Yellow Brick game. The kids got in 2 teams and did a relay race pushing a "yellow brick" (shoe box covered with yellow paper) with a broom. They were very cute with this. Here is a pic.
While we were in the front, some helpers in the back cleaned up the craft table so that we could use it for dinner. We went back and played another game called melt the witch. John painted a picture of the witch with watercolor paint and we gave the kids water balloons to throw at her. If you ever do this, make sure to use "water balloons"!!! I didn't know that they are different from regular balloons!! So it took a lot for them to pop. It was still a lot of fun though! :) Here are a few pics of that.
While the kids were doing that, some helpful adults were bringing out the food. I won't post all the pictures but here are a few and a list of what we served.
Out on the table for when guests arrived:
Scarecrow stuffing (pretzel sticks and veggie sticks)
Over the rainbow fruit salad (shown)
Auntie Em's Garden Veggies and dip
Yellow Brick cookies (vanilla wafers)
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! (animal crackers)
For drinks we did a melted witch punch (shown), and then had labels on coolers:
Munchkin water (8 oz water bottles for the kids)
Tin Man Oil Cans (cans of beer)
Professor Marvel's fantastically refreshing elixir (wine)
(After we had done all the labeling we thought that it would've been funny to label the beer "liquid courage"!!)
For Dinner we had:
Flying Monkey Macaroni (Pasta Salad)
Sandwiches for the kids (shown):
Glinda's wand-witches (PB&J) and Tin-Man Hearts (cheese)
Sandwiches for the adults (shown):
'Wich of the East (turkey and cheese)
'Wich of the West (chicken, roasted pepper, and mozzarella)
And of course, I can't forget the cake!! Lots of work but I love how it turned out. Although if I were to ever do something like this again, I would use much smaller lollipops (if at all). The rainbow is made from rice cereal/marshmallow.
Last, I have to put a picture of the girls (the best one I could get of both of them). You can see the cake behind them with the different layers all the colors of the rainbow.
This was so much fun to do. It's such a great theme - lots of ideas to tie it all together!! I don't know if I will have the energy to do a party like this again soon, but I hope to be able to again someday!! :)
