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Mary Poppins Party -4yr- kite Decorations

February 2007

Catherine in Augusta, WV USA

Special Mention

For my daughter's fourth birthday party we decided to base it on her favorite movie:  Mary Poppins.  Of course there's not much out there in the way of Mary Poppins things, so we were left to our own devices to make a special day. 

For invitations, I copied the Mary Poppins picture from the Broadway Play off the internet and placed that on the front of the card.  Inside I used a border of children flying kites with the text being:  It's a Jolly Holiday for Kellsey; Please join us for a supercalifagilisticexpialidocious fourth birthday part;  2:00 until the wind changes; Number (our house number) (street name) drive; Your presence will make the party practically perfect in everyway so RSVP Spit Spot." 

For decorations we had the party in our recently finished basement my husband wrapped crepe paper around every column to look like carousel poles and we draped blue purple and pink crepe paper in the drop ceiling to look like the sky.  On the walls we hung up small kites we made from construction paper and yarn and also photos of different Mary Poppins scenes copied and enlarged from my daughter's Mary Poppins read-a-long book.  We had several child sized tables and on each we placed centerpieces my daughter and I made of "cherry tree sprigs" (small red berries from a fall wreath bought on sale at the craft store) and little silk daisies.

Activities when the children arrived we had Mary Poppins hats for each girl.  I bought several plastic black derby hats from an online novelty store and my husband and I hot glued the red berries and daisies around them and placed a few daisies through the hat so they were sticking up on top. The boys had just plain undecorated black derby hats like Mr. Banks' hat.  Each child got a black umbrella (again from the novelty store)also.  While we were waiting for everyone to arrive the children colored and decorated card board carousel horses I purchased from oriental trading. They looked really cute and had a little cardboard stand so they stood up freely when done.  Also we had a "sidewalk" of small chalk boards with chalk to draw on like Bert and Penquin bowling (we taped pictures of penquins on my daughter's toy bowling set). 

Once everyone arrived we played A spoon full of sugar game in which each child was given a small plastic spoon and had to carry a sugar cube on the spoon while walking across a 2x4 balance beam and drop the cube into empty pill bottles.  It was just the right challenge for the 4 &5 year olds and they kept playing and taking turns until all the bottles were full.  We then had Carousel horse races; My husband made 4 horses out of pool noodles and gave them felt manes and ears he then drilled a small hole in each noodle and placed a little dowel rod through the middle to look like Carousel horses the kids loved riding them around the basement.  I had then bought kites from Oriental Trading which all the kids decorated with markers and stickers and gluing small scraps of decorative paper.  After the kites were decorated the grown ups helped assemble them and we took them out to fly them. 

A few activities I had planned but we didn't get to because the kites were so fun: Catch the Nannies where we had small black umbrella cut outs and a parachute.  The kids could have used the parachute to make the umbrellas lying on top of it fly up in the air and try to catch them.  Also Musical Chairs to our Mary Poppins CD which we did have playing throughout the entire party.  Lastly I had bought small chimney boxes for Christmas Presents from Oriental Trading filled them with rice and hid bubble gum coins (tuppence) inside for the children to sweep the chimneys and find the prize. 

For food we had spoons full of sugar (my daughter and I made chocolate covered spoons by dipping spoons in melted chocolate and cherry chips and cooling on wax paper) gold nuggets (chicken nuggets) from Mr. Banks bank vault Cheese cube served with umbrella toothpicks frozen raspberries for rasperry ice carmel apples from the jolly holiday Mary Poppins-corn (popcorn) and tea sandwiches. 

The cake I had a good friend of mine whose a baker make a chocolate cake with smooth dark chocolate icing in the form of a hat she decorated it with edible daisies and red cherries.  It looked just like Mary's hat!!  For favors we gave each child a hat umbrella small tape measure (to see how they measure up) snickers bars & laffy taffy (from I love to laugh at Uncle Albert's) coin (tuppence) gum and a bottle of bubbles with penquins on them.  OF course they kept their kites and decorated carousel horses too.  It was such a fun party and the mothers still tell me how much fun their children had.  Most importantly our daughter had such a great time and now can't wait until her 5 year old party!!"

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