I hadn’t planned to post much about the girls’ birthday party here, thinking I’d just tell friends and family about it on Facebook, but I’ve since reconsidered because of Pinterest. Yes, this post has been created for Pinterest. For the greater good. Because I’m a giver. (And for everyone else, I apologize for the obscene number of photos.)

This past weekend, the girls had their birthday party. Their actual birthdays are six days apart in December (no, this was not planned; I’ve always been terrible with The Math), but for the past four years we’ve celebrated in the summer. This is:

• so I don’t go completely insane (adding two parties to an already-full December is probably more than I can do, even with my awesomeness)
• so that I can actually devote time and energy into their parties, which I just love love love. I realize that’s kind of nutty, but it’s truly fun for me. In the summer, I can bake fondant-covered cakes and make themed decorations and generally go all-out. In December, the guests would be lucky to get Hostess cupcakes and a game of Twister.
• so that the girls don’t receive an obscene amount of gifts over the span of twelve days (which, despite how much they love presents, is actually super-overwhelming)
• so that the girls don’t have to “share” their special day with Meeting Santa or The Office Christmas Party or any of the other myriad December commitments
• helpful, financially, for our families, because four gifts in less than two weeks is asking an awful lot
• fun, because they get to celebrate when there isn’t a foot of snow on the ground.

We could do half birthdays in June, but given that we already have SEVEN family birthdays in June, adding a celebration that’s supposed to make things more convenient would really be pushing it. (And, lest you worry, we still recognize their birthdays on the real dates — they receive small gifts [usually “birthday books”], choose a special breakfast and dinner, and get a cake. There just isn’t the big party hoopla, which is fine because there’s also caroling! and decorating the tree! and the Elf on the Shelf! and advent calendars! and cookie baking! and Rudolph! and The Grinch! and, like, Christmas! )

So, anyway, summer birthdays it is.

For months, Ella and Annie insisted that they wanted a Looney Tunes-themed birthday party. They’ve been watching The Looney Tunes Show on their iPads, and thought it would be a hoot to act out some of their favorite episodes during the party. Considering that Nick and I were unsure that any of their friends had ever glimpsed one of these episodes, and also considering that they usually involve Daffy screaming things like, “Well, hello, Officer Jerkface!”, we told them as gently as we could that it was a terrible idea. We tried very hard to steer them in another direction – an art party? Peace signs? Monster trucks? Anything?? But they held fast to Looney Tunes.

Nick pointed out that perhaps we could do Minute to Win It -style games with a Looney Tunes theme, and we were off to the races. I happily began scouring Pinterest and the internet for ideas because I am lazy and don’t want to reinvent the wheel like being inspired by others, only to discover that there are virtually NO Looney Tunes birthday party ideas out there. No blogs. No Pinterest pages (except for baby showers, which, um, no). No anything. In fact, I couldn’t really even find Looney Tunes decorations or paper plates or even some lousy balloons. I guess, despite the fact that Wile E. Coyote has been trying to blow up the Road Runner for at least half a century (which, you would think, makes for fabulous party games), there isn’t a market for Looney Tunes party items.

So, I had to get creative. And I am blogging about it now and then — how weird is this — I will pin this post on my own Pinterest page. Omg, I’ve become that person. Not because I think y’all want to read about it so desperately, nor because I’m so keen on sharing it, nor because it’s so incredible… but because it took nearly all of my available brain power to create it, and if only one person searches Pinterest for “Looney Tunes Party” and finds some of these ideas helpful so they don’t have use all of their available brain power, I will die a happy woman. Or, at least posting 492 photos will not have been in vain. THIS IS FOR YOU, YOU LAZY, NON-WHEEL-INVENTING INTERNET PEOPLE.

Because I’d waited until the last minute to send the invitations (typical), I used evite, but I personalized it a little.
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I thought I was wildly clever and cute, until the girls looked at it and were like, “WTH?” because apparently the Looney Tunes that they are watching is completely different from the one we watched as kids. It’s not just Looney Tunes… it’s the Looney Tunes SHOW. And its logo looks more like this:

(No copyright worries; I downloaded this from the Looney Tunes Show site; very helpful.)

So I guess I’m a bit behind the times. Ah, well.

Because there I couldn’t find any Looney Tunes decorations to purchase, I decided to make some, using – again – photos from the Looney Tunes site.

Although we had the Minute to Win It games scheduled for later on, I wanted a filler activity to kill time while everyone arrived, plus a crafty activity that would both take a bunch of time (I was afraid of ending everything too soon and having mayhem ensue) and provide the party attendees with something fun to take home. To my surprise, Ella and Annie came up with two great ideas: decorating take-home bags and having each girl paint a wooden (hangable) letter that matched her first initial.

Totally Looney Tunes-d it up, see? So clever.

The decorating tables, ready to go for when the guests arrived. In the bowls? Looney Tunes stickers that I printed from the computer. BECAUSE NO ONE SELLS LOONEY TUNES STICKERS. (Super easy, btw — just printed the images I’d already downloaded from the Looney Tunes site, squeezing them really tiny onto full-page labels, and then the kids cut out the tiny images. Voila, stickers.)

The backs of the bags also had these – made in the same “sticker” method, only larger.

Working hard on her letter painting.

All done with her E.
No, this wasn’t Ella’s party attire – we’d given all of the girls smock-like shirts so that they wouldn’t get paint on themselves.

The gift bags and letters, lined up and ready to go home at the end of the party.

Then, it was time to move onto games. Essentially, we took classic birthday party or Minute to Win It games and Looney Tunes-ified them.

First up, “Pass the Parcel” —  aka “Granny’s Gift.”

Passing the present as the music played (One Direction, duh)…

Then, opening up a layer when the music stopped. Except “Granny” is a bit forgetful, so she wrapped the gift, like, 10 times. They thought this was hysterical.

At long last, they reached the inside: duck-billed whistles. (Daffy-inspired. Again with the cleverness.)

Each kiddo also took home some Looney Tunes character bandz, which were the one and only “official” Looney Tunes items I was able to find online.

Next up was a Minute To Win It game called “Face the Cookie,” adapted to become “Porky’s Pig Out!”

Hey… they kind of look like little pig snouts, don’t they? Maybe?

The object of the game is to move the cookie from your forehead into your mouth… by just moving your facial muscles, not using your hands. Not easy… but so very funny.It seems Ella thought she could will the cookie into her mouth by opening it advance…

Yes, of course they got to eat the cookies, whether they succeeded or not. We’re not total schmucks.

After that, it was time for the perennial party favorite, Dressing in Clothes That Are Way Too Large For You and Running A Relay Race Feeling Like An Idiot.

 In this case, it was done Speedy Gonzales style.

They couldn’t stop laughing. This was totally my favorite game of the party.

After that, it was time for something slightly lower-key, so we took the Minute to Win It game called “Suck It Up” and called it “Tweet It Up.” SO. CLEVER.

The game’s object? To move small candies from one bowl to another using a straw.

Ella was really, really good at this game. Which kind of makes me uncomfortable.

Then, it was back to the races, this time with another Minute to Win It game called “Defying Gravity,” where you’re supposed to keep three balloons in the air for 60 seconds.

Ours was “Daffy’s Defying Gravity,” because of the alliterative nature of the title, and also because Daffy is full of hot air. GET IT?? Ahem.

Three balloons was deemed too difficult, so they attempted to keep two in the air (which was still an enormous challenge). 

We started by having only four girls play at a time, thinking it might be fun for everyone else to watch… WRONG. So very wrong. Once you see balloons, it is not fun to watch – you absolutely must touch them. Right now. So we restarted, this time with everyone playing.

The final Minute to Win It-inspired game was originally called “A Bit Dicey,” where participants balance dice onto thin popsicle sticks. For ours, the kiddos balanced green wooden cubes (that Ella and Annie had very excitedly spray-painted themselves) onto Bugs’s orange “carrot” sticks. 

We then moved back to old-school games, with Pin the Purse on Lola.

Apparently, Lola is a new Looney Tunes Show character, Bugs’s girlfriend or something. I don’t know, but the girls like her, so we went with it.

At last, we got to the activity I’d been most excited for: the TNT. I guess that the new Looney Tunes characters don’t really blow one another up anymore, which is kind of a shame, but after I’d seen a friend do something similar at her son’s Minecraft party, I knew there was no turning back.

Supplies ready to go, including my favorite part, the dynamite box…

The box actually was pump-able! Nothing happened when you pushed down, but hey, it looked cool.


Dropping the Mentos into Diet Coke…

Success!

The final activity of the day was a pinata. This one was made out of a paper bag and took maybe 20 minutes to put together. It was still nearly impossible to break — so hard, in fact, that despite the girls swinging for it while not wearing a blindfold, it was un-openable, and Nick wound up taking it down and just throwing the candy everywhere.

The loot was taken home in carrot bags (Oriental Trading Company, baby), one last nod to Bugs Bunny.

And, of course, no party would be complete without cake (or cupcakes or a cookie cake or brownies or, well, anything with which to send the guests home on an enormous sugar high). Since, again, Looney Tunes-themed cakes were basically non-existent online (save for baby shower cakes that freaked out the girls), I decided to go the cheat-y way and make a regular cake with Looney Tunes figurines stuck on.

I was going to do the original Looney Tunes logo on the top, but the girls begged for the new logo. *sigh* At least I got to use my airbrush.

Please ignore the “Looney Tunes” script. I suck at cake writing.
Which is also why their names are written in pen on the bottom, rather than on the cake.


Look, it’s Lola again. 

I made the cake the night before (those little zig zags on the bottom were hard, yo!), and kept it hidden from the girls until the party. They got a kick out of the 9 and 7 squished together on top of the cake (“I’m not almost 100, Mommy!”)…

But, more than that, they loved it and said it was just what they’d wanted.

Seeing the cake for the first time…

And that makes all of the insanity worthwhile.
Well, that, and the leftover cake I got to eat for three days.

So, there you have it, internet. My contribution to the world: A Looney Tunes birthday party.

That’s all, folks!