Warrior Cats Birthday Party

My daughter has been obsessed with the Warrior Cats Saga for the last several years. She is making her way through all 80 books and even creates her own short stories and artwork based on the characters. So, naturally, for her 9th birthday, she chose “Warriors” as her theme and we had so much fun scrolling Pinterest for ideas and coming up with the food, games, activities, and decor for her party.

Warriors is a series about 4 clans of cats who live in a forest. The first arc is about a house cat named Rusty who goes into the woods and meets a clan cat. As the series progresses, Rusty becomes the Warrior known as Fireheart. He fights evil and protects his clan’s borders from rogues who stray into their territory and from other clans. Each arc features a different cat and sometimes a different clan.

Warriors eat their food from a “Fresh Kill Pile.” Our food table was inspired by things the Warrior cats would catch and devour. I included signs for the birds, bones, fish, rabbits, and mice. The birds were chocolate dipped pretzels with an M&M nose, mini chocolate chip ears, and Wilton’s candy eyeballs. Slide mini marshmallows on the end of stick pretzels and then dip in white candy melts to create “bones.” For the mice we used strawberries, twizzlers candy, mini chocolate chips, and small circles of chocolate candy melts (left over from the birds) for the ears. We used blue jello and Swedish fish candies, as well as Goldfish crackers because we all know how much cats love fish, and our rabbits were Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies crackers. Since the party was at dinnertime I made some PB&J sandwiches cut in the shape of cats. in the Warriors books, there is a sacred place on the hills called the “Moonpool,” so we replaced water labels with ones reading “Moonpool Water” and surrounded them with rocks to resemble a pond. #CommissionsEarned

The games and activities kept these Warriors Fans entertained for the majority of the party. We started out with a silly game of “Scoop the Poop.” Fill a tub with Rice Crispy cereal and add some mini Tootsie Rolls to the tub. You will be surprised at how difficult it is to feel those tiny Tootsie Rolls with a blind fold on. The kids took turns “scooping the poop” from our Rice Crispy litter box and of course giggled their way through the game at the same time. We gave them 30 seconds to find as many “nuggets” as they could and they got to keep what they found. I added more tootsie rolls as the game went on.

Cats like to hunt for prey, so our second game was an animal scavenger hunt in the front yard. I created signs with the names of the 4 Warriors Clans and the kids got to choose their clan. I picked up some tiny forest animals at the dollar store and had my older son hide them before the party started. The Clans took off to hunt for rabbits, birds, and little hedgehogs that they would later trade in for candy. We used the mini animals in the next activity as well.

My favorite part of this party was “create your own Warriors scene.” Karis and I spent some time making multiple batches of green and brown play dough in the days prior to her party. We picked up some aluminum tins from the Dollar Tree and a bunch of nature materials. At the Dollar Tree we found blue glass beads to use as water, mossy rocks, leaves, fake flowers and plants, and a variety of rocks. I grabbed some wood rounds and plastic cats from Michael’s and collected twigs from the yard and let the kids use their imaginations to create their very own Warriors scene. They used the brown play dough as dirt and the green as a base for grass and built from there. Each one was unique and they all turned out amazing. I even picked up some little plastic garden signs so that they could name their creations. #CommissionsEarned

My daughter isn’t a huge fan of cake, so we always make marshmallow pops for her birthday treat. This year, I bought the big square mallows that you can use for s’mores and covered them in green Wilton’s candy melts. I used orange candy melts to create little cat silhouettes and put them on the front for the tastiest birthday treats. And in case you are wondering where we got Karis’s ThunderClan T-shirt, I made it using a photocopied image as a template that I printed off from the computer and a small piece of black material. I then used Seam-A-Seam 2 light to iron it onto a white cotton tee after cutting it out of the black fabric. She has worn it many times since her party and it has held up really well.

We always like to send our party guest off with a little thank you and my girl loves Hershey’s chocolate bars. I created Warriors themed wrappers to replace the Hershey ones with a little thank you note on the back for Karis to hand to each of her friends at the end of the party. #CommissionsEarned

Maybe you have a little Warriors fan of your own who would enjoy a Warriors Themed Birthday Party. I hope that this blogpost has made your planning a bit easier and inspired some fun ways for you to celebrate. As the Warriors like to say, “may StarClan light your path!”

Warrior Cats fans will also love this…

Wings of Fire Birthday Party

Bob Ross Paint Night

Almost a year ago, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. If you would have told me in the year 2000, when we said “I do,” that our 20th anniversary would be spent in quarantine in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, I would have thought you were crazy. I always pictured us spending our 20th in a tropical location, just the two of us, but in those early days of Covid, with the world pretty much shut down, we found ourselves sheltering in place with our little family of 5. Grocery stores were open and you could order take out from a restaurant, but that was about it.

A few weeks before our 20th, we were scrolling through the TV trying to decide on something to watch as a family. We came across a video of Bob Ross painting and my kids were drawn in, watching him take a blank canvas and create a beautiful nature scene. I jokingly mentioned that sometime we should have a “Bob Ross Paint Night” and everyone seemed to like the idea. So as I was brainstorming quarantine anniversary options, that conversation came to mind and my wheels started turning.

I knew that Michael’s craft store had a curbside pick-up option, so I ordered an acrylic paint set, brushes, and canvases. I grabbed a couple of old sheets to drape over chairs, turned our living room into a makeshift art studio, and we celebrated the big 2 0 pandemic style, at home, painting along with Bob Ross. #CommissionsEarned

To be completely honest, I expected our paintings to look like five big black, brown, and green blobs. And about thirty minutes in, that is exactly what our works of art looked like. But somewhere along the way, waterfalls began to form, tiny cabins took shape, and Bob Ross taught amateurs like us how to create something more beautiful than we imagined. When it was all said and done, I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome and pretty darn proud of my family! Every canvas was different, but each one actually looked like a forest with a waterfall and a cabin. Bob Ross turned out to be quite the teacher 🙂 Today, our paintings line the hallway and when I walk by them, they make me smile.

Next week we celebrate 21 years of marriage. 21 years, 3 children, 2 states, 3 cities, 9 houses, and more vehicles than I can count. We have weathered the ups and downs of life, including a worldwide pandemic. It has not been easy. We have had seasons of joy and seasons of heartache, but this quote on our bedroom wall sums up my thoughts as we approach 21 years. “We may not have it all together, but together, we have it all.” Cheesy, but true!