Building Rainbows

Well, we survived our first "friends" birthday party last weekend and actually came through it with all good memories and most of our sanity in tact to boot!
The kids each invited 2 friends from school and we had a few other family friends join us, too. There were crafts, games and food, all with the 'rainbow' theme somehow included.
Here are some of the highlights from our very special day.

Every good party starts with alot of balloons!

To get warmed up, everyone made a scrapbook page for the birthday memory album I'm making for the kids.

Then we used old crayons (see recipe below) to make rainbow crayon cookies.

Crayon Cookies
Old crayons, paper removed.
Foil cupcake liners
Baking sheet

Take paper off crayons and break into several pieces (whatever you can break by hand is fine.)
Separate pieces by color into bowls.
Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
Put foil cupcake liners on a cookie sheet and have kids fill them about 2/3 full with the crayon bits. Mixing colors is fine as the wax will stay divided and not run together.
Heat the tray for about 12 minutes. They're done when the pieces have completely melted and no big lumps stick up on top.
CAREFULLY remove the baking sheet and let cool on the stove top for about 15 minutes. (Try not to slosh the wax at this point so it doesn't mix during transfer.)
After cookies have cooled a little, further cool in the fridge to harden them then peel the foil off.
Smooth the edges off and they're ready to use! I found this idea along with some other great old-crayon crafts at http://www.thriftyfun.com/ .

Next, we played games. Here, the kids are racing to wrap ribbon around a paper towel roll in the colors of the rainbow. Say that 10 times really fast!

Then we had a treasure hunt. Each child picked 'treasure' out of the pot and made a rainbow with 6 different colored toys.

Finally, it was time for the good stuff...cupcakes, jello (see recipe below) and yummy fruit. I looked high and low for an elusive purple fruit and finally found pears soaked in raspberry juice to complete the rainbow fruit tray.

Rainbow Jello Jigglers
(1) 3oz box each of blue, red & yellow jello.
A box of Knox gelatin packets.
Large clear glass casserole dish (rectangle or square is best.)
Mix the blue jello with a packet of Knox in a mixing bowl. Pour 2 cups of boiling water in and stir til dissolved. Pour into glass casserole and add about 8 ice cubes. Stir til melted. Skim off bubbles from around the edge. Let set in fridge 1 hour.
Repeat steps with yellow next. Pour over the blue and let set 1 hour also.
Repeat for red and let set.
To serve, cut into squares and carefully lift out.

Although there are only 3 jello colors, they combine to give the appearance of green and orange also being present.
I found this recipe at a great cooking blog, dobetter.wordpress.com

And what's a party without alot of good friends to share it with?

Finally, it was time to open the gifts. This was actually the most chaotic time of the whole day. I quickly realized that it was going to be a group-opening event and I gave up on trying to figure out who brought what! Writing thank-you notes should be interesting :-)

What a fun day we had! Let's do it again.....next year!