A Cowgirl Birthday

For our daughter's 5th birthday we decided to host a cowgirl party. We used a lot of the ideas we found on this website (thank you!). Because we live on a farm, some aspects of the cowgirl party were pretty easy to pull off, but most could be done anywhere. We found that having activity stations worked really well for the younger crowd at this party, because they could move around on their own schedule. Here are some of the activities that we included that made the day a great success:

* Dress Up -- As the guests arrived, they could help themselves to costumes in a big costume trunk we set up. They then moved on to a "make up area" where we had put out some bright costume make up and mirrors. Some parents helped their children here, but most had fun painting their own faces. After they were all duded up, they could get their picture taken in front of a big Wanted poster we taped to the wall.

* Make Your Own Sheriff's Vest -- We put out a sample vest, as well as brown paper bags, scissors, glue, and a variety of markers and trim. The final products were really great!

* Watermelon Seed Spitting Contest -- Because the party was on a warm summer day, we set out a tray of sliced watermelon and just put a sign labeling it as a watermelon seed spitting contest. The kids thought this was really fun!

* Steer Roping -- For this we stuck our roping dummy head into a bale of hay and looped a lasso around its neck. (If you don't have access to these things, you could do this with a stick pony and a long piece of rope and call it "round up yer horses".)

* Sack Races -- We ordered some burlap bags fom a party supply store and had a bunch of sack relay races. We even had some parents get involved by holding onto their little ones as they jumped!

Some of the other things that made the party a hit were the cowboy hat favors, sasparilla served in plastic boot mugs, and the cake which we decorated at home by sticking plastic horses on top surrounded by a little plastic fence. It was a great day!