Ninja Warrior Birthday

UPDATE: I have made the files I used available for download (for a small fee) using the following link. It contains the jpeg files for the invitation and the Word document for making the t-shirts.  Hope this makes it easier to get the files as I am terrible with responding to email requests.  Please email me with any questions or concerns.  Thanks!

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I think it is ok (and not too arrogant) to admit that I am pretty proud of the events that I have organized for my family. I take great joy in planning and executing parties for my kids. I think the ultimate compliment can come from a 5 year old, when they say they had a great time and the party was so much fun! I think I may have outdone myself with my son's latest birthday party. One of his favorite things right now is Ninja Warrior (and Wipeout). Ever hear of it...or are we the only ones that know of this show? Both shows are competition shows that involve obstacle courses...Ninja Warrior has some pretty incredible obstacles (especially in the final stages), but I think my son loves the first stage where they show tons of people wiping out. He even creates his own "courses" out of blocks and has his "Little People" run the course...full commentary and everything. Most of the time I am just required to watch, but sometimes I have to act as one of the commentators. So with fascination in mind, I plan a Birthday Ninja Warrior Party.

First came the invitation...obviously no stamps around to use to make an invitation with this theme. So I tried my hand at some Photoshop work. Basically I stumbled around until I got what I wanted. I "borrowed" the Ninja Warrior logo (don't send the copyright police after me please!) and copied the little Ninja dude and the red slash and placed them on a black circle. Then I found a font that was close to the Ninja Warrior font...not exact, but pretty close. Then I made some red explosion marks...really not sure what to call those. Then I took the tone of the opening of the Ninja Warrior show and changed it to give the information inside the invitation. I was really quite please with how this turned out.

Since I made this fabulous logo, I decided that I need to use it to the fullest extent. I changed it to read "Future Ninja Warrior" and printed it on T-shirt transfers. I got cheap undershirt t-shirts and ironed them on for each kid (see group photo below). I gave a "Japanese-sounding" ending to each of their names and printed out name tags for each kid and presented them with their new name for the party (they thought that was pretty funny!). I also printed out their names on some other name tags (with the logo of course) and put them on their goodie bags filled with a little bit of candy, so little ninja dudes from Oriental Trading, and some ninja related tattoos also from Oriental Trading. Then of course I used the logo for the basis of my cake...check it out! I am very proud of this cake...turned out better than I thought it would!

For activities during the party, I started them painting some wood boards...they had no idea why yet, but painted happily. Then as they tried, we had them run an obstacle course in our house. Yeah I am sure the other parents hate me, because we basically had them climbing all of the furniture as they were part of the obstacles! We had them run in one at a time first and then it was a free-for-all. They went around and around. Too funny. Then we brought them back to the "craft table" and the created ball mazes with the boards. The boards had nails hammered into them (thank you to my wonderful husband) and they strung rubber bands around the nails to create a maze for some bouncy balls. This was an idea I found in the Family Fun magazine.

A group shot (getting 12 kids to look all in one direction just doesn't happen...and for some reason my son was the worst one about not looking!), pizza, cake, and presents finished off the party!

The free-for-all of the obstacle course!

The kids making their ball mazes

Attempting a group shot of 12 four and five year olds...good luck!

Can't believe he is 5 already!

Well I hope that you enjoyed seeing the pics from his party! It really was a blast even if it was what I would call controlled chaos! Thanks for checking out my kind of engineering!