Zoe's Eco-Friendly Birthday Bash!

For Zoe's 8th birthday this year she wanted to do an environmentally friendly party! Lately she has become very Earth conscious and has been asking me about everything "green". I'm so excited and proud that my big girl has great values and ideals when it comes to nature and sustaining our planet!

One very "green" chic! Oh yeah, Zoe got her hair cut for her birthday too! She almost had enough to donate! She was shy by one inch! Oh well, maybe next time!

Ok, this is literally the best shot that I got of all 3 of my beauties this Saturday... Hmmm.... looks like we need to practice our photo shoots a bit more! Sonya is watching Elmo on TV, Akela is looking God knows where and Zoe is completely irritated that I have already begun with the picture taking, not to mention she has a pole coming out of her head!

Akela being cute, but my camera is totally on the wrong setting and the lighting is bad!

"Sonya bean" being too cute!

I love this picture of her!

Zoe's Earth cake that mommy made. It's actually not cake, but 2 layers of homemade brownies topped with french vanilla frosting (dyed with food coloring).


I think Zoe got a slice of Africa.

The cake was for our family party 11am-2pm and then I made homemade brownie cupcakes for the kids party 2:30pm-5pm. I used silicone bake cups to keep with the "green theme".

So, Ian and I totally splurged and got her a Nintendo DS Lite with 2 games and carrying case. She was soooooo happy about this! The only thing "green" about this is it's color and the amount of green I had to drop to get it! Here is Zoe playing (totally addicted to video games already) and her sister Akela and cousin Camille checking it out on the sidelines.


Zoe also loves everything having to do with cats! She is completely obsessed! Other than all the cat stuff that she received she also got a beautiful locket with her initial "Z" on the front, some really cool magic tricks and a pretty bird feeder, American Girl Doll outfits, a savings bond and build a bear clothes, a sequins purse, Pokemon cards, lip gloss, nail polish, eye glitter, a dry erase board and picture frame, $ and a cute ballerina bear! Here is a picture of Sonya enjoying some of those cute cats! Shh! Don't tell Zoe, but I'm totally letting Sonya play with these while she is in school!

Here is Zoe with the book "Just Grace Goes Green"

Little miss Sonya hanging out with my sister Meghan, Aunt Mae Mae.


For the kid party part of the day, we kicked it off by making jar lid photo magnets (paint a jar lid, cut photo to fit and glue it inside then hot glue a magnet on the back). We then made bookmarks out of cereal boxes, each kid picked out their favorite box (I've been saving for months). The next project was to plant crocus bulbs inside origami paper pots (biodegradable) and I sent them all outside with Ian to do so, so that I could sew up their t-shirts that they brought with for crafting into tote bags! Inside their tote bags I also placed the fun snack bags that I made out of potato chip bags! Here is Zoe all proud of her beautiful planting project!

What September "green theme" party wouldn't be complete without some bobbing for granny smith apples?! The only downside is that because it is apple season here in Pennsylvania, those suckers are huge, pretty much too huge for little 8 year old mouths to grasp! All of the kids were happy to try and then take one of the apples to snack on while swinging on our swing set out back.

Zoe giving it her best shot!

After the bobbing I had all the kids pick out some "green theme" iron on patches and buttons for their t-shirt totes and I put them on. I then had them help fill a ice stick tray (the kind for water bottles) with broken junked up old crayons that everyone had brought and that had been peeled of their papers. We sorted the colors and then melted them down in my oven into new whole crayons! Each kiddo got to take home 2 new pretty crayons! Then came the really fun part! I saved up wide mouthed vitamin water bottles, cleaned and dried them out really good prior to the party. I gave each of the kids a bottle and had them promise me and Zoe that they would recycle the bottle after they finished what was inside. They promised us but looked very puzzled. "But Mrs. Swartley, there isn't anything in the bottles?!" That's when I picked up the huge shopping bag full of a variety of candy and dumped the whole thing on the kitchen table and told them they had 2 minutes to pack their bottles as full as they could get them! They went NUTS! I wish I captured more pictures of all the excitement, but I really had my hands full with this wild bunch! P.S. That is Zoe's unofficial boyfriend sitting next to her. She won't admit it, but they are just too cute together! Happy 8th Birthday Zoe! I love you soooo much!


Side Note : This is what Sonya thinks about her activity table....

What a goof!

Stay tuned for Sonya's Big Girl Bed post coming soon!