I didn’t plan to have a birthday party for JustaBXgirl this year. Or last year for the matter. Last year though she really wanted a party after choosing her theme and everything fell into place so I gave in. Then I started reminding her that there would be no more parties. Besides, we do Disney and cupcakes in school. Does she really need a party on top of that?
Um, when I realized it would be her 007th birthday, I realized she definitely needed a party! At first, I was thinking of a Sassy 7th Spa Salon Soiree but when I gave her the choice between a spa party and a spy party she jumped at the chance to go to Spy School! Alas, her 007 Super Spy School birthday party was born.
I scoured the internet with ways to make this a reality. I wanted to take her and some friends to an escape room but sadly I couldn’t find one that was good for an under 8 crowd. I thought about renting a space to host the party but event spaces are EXPENSIVE and I planned to have the spies in training being very active so I wanted lots of open space. I finally came up with the idea that we would do the party outside! Yup, I chose to have an outdoor birthday party for my January baby in FEBRUARY. I thought I was crazy and figured other people would too. Let me tell you how amazing my village is. Everyone that I sent the invitation to said, we will be there! (Except for parents that had to work or prior engagements). Either way, the weather wasn’t keeping anyone away.
Speaking of invites, there are so many cute Spy Party invites online and that you can order from Etsy. I decided to be creative though and merge some of my favorite ideas from each and create my own template on Canva. Let me know what you think of it in the comments. Also, if you need your own spy party invite, just click this link: Super Spy School Invite.
After reading blogs and brainstorming activities for the party I came up with our itinerary. I’ll be honest, once we got to the park and the spies in training started playing we didn’t stick to the itinerary perfectly but we did get everything done on their time and they had so much fun. I am adding the itinerary here so you can use it if you want to host your own Spy School or if you just need something to do with the littles outside.
During registration, the spies-in-training were given their loot bags. I know! When do you give a loot bag at the beginning of the party? It just made sense since the loot bags had their ID badges and their uniforms. Check out my 007 Spy School Must-Haves post that should be up next week for what was included in the bags and where it mostly came from! Again, for the ID badges I scoured the internet and took a little from all the badges I saw to create our own.
Relay & Rely was supposed to be a relay race through the playground, kind of American Ninja style up and around but when faced with the little spies I decided to turn it into a more traditional race but with only one person running it at a time to avoid collisions. It also worked as a teambuilder because even though there was competitiveness between the spies they really cheered each other on.
Keep Going was my plan to tire them out. The park where we hosted the party has a track so my idea was to have them run some laps! The whole group made it around once, including the smallest spy at two years old. JustaBXgirl found a cheat code and had one of her older cousins ride her around on the back of his bike! It definitely gave me a peek into the not so distant future seeing her ride the pegs. It also served as a reminder that she needs to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels this summer because my baby is growing up!
Beat The Bomb is something I was inspired by Kristin from Exploring Domesticity. She threw an amazingly fun party and was so helpful in letting me pick her brain when I was planning our party. It also ended up being my favorite activity watching the spies in training complete. I worried because it rained the night before the party. I had originally envisioned the balloon popping happening as my mini spies bounced on the grass and giggling gleefully. It didn’t quite work out that way. The grass had a flag football game happening and as I said, it had rained so the ground was wet. Still, my spies figured out ways to pop the balloons and were so excited to find clues inside.
I adored watching them figure out that our mission was taking us to McDonald’s. I need to share that I am not a fan of feeding children McDonald’s. BUT, a mama got to do what a mama got to do. And after having littles playing outside in the winter cold for two hours, I needed to take them somewhere warm that they could continue being carefree. The McDonald’s in our neighborhood has a playspace and after working together to be super stealth on the way there they took over the space and played for another hour while taking a break only to eat a happy meal and sing happy birthday.
