…even though I only have boys in my life.
I’m very okay with my lot in life because I think my four little boys (and their daddy) are THE BEST. I wouldn’t trade in all of my sons’ frog catching, noise making, light saber fighting, tooting loudly at the table and laughing because it must have broken the world’s record for something tooty boyness for all the pink and lace in the world.
But sometimes…it’s fun to hear about what it’s like to live with all girls. My friend Tonya has four little girls…all very close in age to my boys. We find it fun to compare notes on life. When I heard her talking about the birthday party she was planning for her oldest daughter Bailey, I thought it sounded like SUCH a fun party, and I wanted to hear more. So she agreed to write a guest post for me so that you could all enjoy hearing about this exciting event that I will never, ever be able to participate in with one of my sons:
A Shopping Mall Scavenger Hunt Birthday Party
Here’s Tonya describing her fun party for Bailey:
Bailey wanted a birthday party that she could invite a lot of friends to. I of course, waited till the very last minute to come up with an idea. I have always wanted to try and do something at the mall and my sister-in-law had done a mall birthday party when her daughter was younger too. She told me about a scavenger hunt that she did. I also just googled scavenger hunts online and there happen to be a mall one online as well. So I took what I learned from both sources and made one that worked for me.
First, we made the guest list. Bailey had 15 friends that she wanted to invite. For some people this would not be an issue but since we live an hour away from the mall, that meant that I would need to search for enough car space and I would need to allow for enough drive time both ways. I really didn’t think I would have too much of a problem with the whole car space thing because I thought that it would be unlikely for all of the girls who were invited to be able to come. (By the way, they all came.)
I made the invitations myself. I just typed them up on the computer. I used a cute font and color and printed them off. I folded them in a trifold and sealed them with a sticker that I just had on hand. The invitation explained that it would be a scavenger hunt, I would provide dinner and bring money in case we had time to shop.
I prepared a list of things to “hunt”. I decided to do mostly pictures. Some of the things they had to take pictures of were the entire team wearing hats and posing in their best gangster look, entire team modeling formal attire, one team member kissing a manequin, entire team modeling sunglasses, purses, one team member posing in a window like a mannequin and entire team posing in childrens’ ride, to name a few. I also gave each team $5 to buy an accessory from a store of their choice and they had to think about what the birthday girl would like (the item ended up being a gift for Bailey).
We left about 3pm on a Saturday. We decorated three vehicles with paint for the windows. It said stuff like, “Honk it is my birthday” and “Honk it is Bailey’s 12th Birthday!” I had snacks and water bottles in each of the cars since it would be an hour drive and we were going to do the scavenger hunt first. The girls really talked non stop the whole way. I had thought about some games we could do on the drive but it was not necessary. Go figure!
When we got to the mall, I divided the girls up into three teams. I did give a few rules like, don’t run, listen to a store associate if he asks you not to take pictures, make sure that all team members get turns in the photographs and if the entire team needs to be in the picture, then have someone else take the picture. I handed them their lists and a digital camera along with a $5 bill and off they went. This is the part that was really fun and surprisingly, relaxing. My husband Tim and I, along with two of my friends who were helping me with the party and driving, walked and shopped through the mall for the next hour while the girls were scavenging. It was great. We would run into them once in awhile and they appeared to be having a great time.
We met back at the food court. I had them leave their cameras with me. I gave each girl a five dollar bill to go and get their supper while I downloaded the pictures to my lap top. As the girls ate, they watched a slide show of the “hunt”. They went off for a bit to do some shopping and then we met back at the food court to eat big birthday cookies that I had made earlier that day (cookies the size of a pizza pan) and for the opening of the presents. After a little more shopping (boy those girls could shop!), we left for home.
We were gone for a total of 5 hours (remember that is about 2 hours of driving time). We had a wonderful time. The guests went on and on about what a great time they had. The parents have commented on how much their girls loved it too. It was a huge success!
To top the party off, I used my Windows Movie Maker to make a video of the pictures I had put on my computer. I used some of Bailey’s favorite songs in it and at the end I put a “Thank you for coming to my party” page. I put the movie on DVDs and made envelopes out of cardstock so that Bailey could give those to her friends for thank you notes.
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Thanks Tonya, for letting me live vicariously through you just this once! Doesn’t that party sound like so much fun?
The amount of money it took to feed the girls dinner did add up (fifteen girls, Bailey?) :) But aside from that, I thought that the scavenger hunt at the mall was a great idea for an inexpensive birthday party that included a lot of kids. And that’s why I wanted to share it for Frugal Friday.
Now, if you’d like to read about the kind of birthday parties we get to have with our family you can read about them here and here. They include absolutely nothing about shopping, or accessories, or cute invitations with sticker seals. They do however include things about toots and stink. Read them at your own risk…
Christy says
What a fun idea!! I may just have to do this for my daughters. But not with *15* guests. :)
Marnie says
My daughters went to a party like that last year. The birthday girl was turning 18, and she wanted all the girls to wear pretty princess crowns on their hunt. :o) They had a lot of fun. It’s such a great idea, one that I would never have thought of myself.
Sherry says
What a cute idea! My daughter would love something like this for her birthday. :D
MaryBeth @ FourSillySisters says
I’m definitely going to have to file this one away for later. My girls are only 3, 2, 2, & 2 now, but it sounded like such fun I’m sure we’ll give it a try in 10 or so years….. if I can remember!?!
Alyssa says
We’ve done mall scavenger hunts with teens and also college age groups- guys and girls! The guys enjoy it as much as the girls do. Of course, you probably wouldn’t do the extra shopping time! Just stick with the hunt and go have pizza or something. :)
I remember doing a mall scavenger hunt in college. We had to find the most stuff within a time limit. They were things like the most expensive watch/pen/sunglasses, the biggest size of men’s pants, a particular lamp, a picture by a certain artist, etc. So you really had to “hunt”! Of course this takes someone doing some hunting beforehand to find a bunch of crazy and hard-to-find stuff, but it was so much fun! Just thought I’d share! :)
Org Junkie says
Oh that does sound fun! I don’t live anywhere near a mall though (more like an 8 hour drive) so we won’t be doing that either but it was definitely fun to read about :)
Andrea says
Actually Laura, you can do something similar, but for ladies. Check out my post from earlier this year about a scavanger hunt for moms. http://mom4boys.blogspot.com/2008/02/laughter.html#links It was FULL Of laughter. My mom gave me the idea. She did the scavanger hunt with a bunch of ladies from church. I tweaked the ideas for my town and group of ladies. We’re still talking about it months later.