Celebrating Batty Natty

One of the things I love about Natalie is that she is creative and unequivocal.  Sometime early this summer she informed me that she wanted a bat party for her birthday.  I was a little surprised by this request but knew she was serious.  Some people thought she would change her mind come December, but no, I knew when she mentioned it the first time that her heart would stay the course.

She had learned a little about bats from a Kids National Geographic magazine which may have influenced her decision a little bit.  She definitely had a strong interest in them.  October, of course, lended itself to searching for bat paraphernalia on sale post Halloween.  Some might have been confused by which month we were in when they walked through our front door.

One half of our house looked like Christmas...

and the other part looked Halloweeny.  Bats go so well with our orange kitchen.

Natalie was steadfast about having a bat party and also about having a pinata.  She talked about it often in the coming months and asked the right person in the end:  Auntie, who wouldn't say no and handmade it for her.  She was so stoked when it arrived in the mail.

Natalie was able to invite 5 party guests and 4 out of the 5 were able to attend.

  

When they arrived they got to do magic stencils on bats and eat bat treats.

Bat guano (dark chocolate covered raisens) and fruit (bat food).

I wanted to be "present" at the party and not too busy taking pictures so I actually didn't get pics of every game we played.  We had a headstand contest (bats sleep upside down) to which Natalie blew the competition away.  A bug catching game.  Blindfold freeze tag using "echolocation."  And the highlight of the party for Natalie--the bat pinata.

  

 We also read a book called Bat Jamboree to reign in the energy and then each girl got to decorate her own bat cake with her own bag of dark purple frosting, candy eyes, and tons of sprinkles.

 One of my post-Halloween snags was this mold of individual bat cakes I found on our 8th anniversary getaway at the Celestial Seasonings tour in Boulder.  (Pardon my dirty oven window).

Celestial Seasonings November 9, 2012

A lot of love and hard work went into having these for the bat party...

And there were many casualties.

Speaking of love and well, work, I also made these bat goody bags for each of the girls to take home.  I got the idea for the bags from "The Best of Martha Stewart:  Halloween Handbook."

Here are some of the goodies I put inside.

Of course in the middle of my project I realized that most of the guests can't even read yet.  Oh well.  I had fun being creative.  And all I really care about is that she felt loved and honored.

Thanks for the bat-tastic idea, Natalie!  We love you!