Paige decided she wanted a Survivor themed birthday party. This one took quite a bit of preparation before the party, but the girls had a really good time. I even made a custom logo that we used on the invitations and also the tribe buffs. Here's Paige at the start of the party - wearing her "buff" and holding our tiki man voting container (old formula can covered with paper mache and painted). As the girls arrived, they drew their buffs (which determined which tribe they were on) and then they went to their tribe 'camp' and worked on their tribe flags, tribe name, and mascot. We had two tribes - the green tribe became the Polka Dotted Panthers: And the blue tribe was the Shaba-Laba-Ding-Dongs and their lovely mascot had a cheetah front end and a zebra read end :-) Then we got started on the challenges. For the first challenge, each team designated a 'caller' who stood on their tribe mat and directed teams of two that were tied together at the wrist and blindfolded out into the yard to find bags of puzzle pieces. They had to bring each bag back to the mat separately and the caller had to direct both sets of tribemates at the same time - by yelling at them which direction to go. Once they retrieved all three bags full of puzzle pieces, they had to untie the bags that were knotted really well and then assemble their puzzles... After that was our very first Tribal Council, where the girls from the winning tribe all voted for who they thought did the best in the challenge. There was no 'voting off the island' in Birthday Survivor :-) The next challenge was the infamous food challenge. The girls went head to head against the other tribe with mystery ingredients. First girl to finish her portion and stick our her tongue showing an empty mouth earned a point for her tribe. I figured I couldn't get away with anything too gross so it was all standard grocery-store fare: pimento stuffed olives, sauerkraut (pictured above), potted meat, baby food peas, and sardines. We ended up with a tie, so the tiebreaker was Wasabi Peas - each person had to eat two and the tribe that finished first won. The next challenge was an endurance competition. Who can stand on one leg on a brick the longest? After two minutes, they had to put their hands on top of their heads... after another two minutes they had to lift their non-standing leg out in front of them, etc. The next challenge involved two balance beams with a large bucket of water at one end and two empty containers at the other end. The girls had to walk across the beam and collect water through whatever means possible... mouth, hands, hair, buff... and then return across the balance beam and deposit the water in their tribe's container. Once they made it across the next tribemate went. If someone fell off the beam in the middle, they had to start over. First tribe to fill their container won. There were a couple more challenges, including the typical Survivor auction, but not as many pictures were taken. We headed inside where Paige had a Tiki Man cake: Then we opened presents, the girls played for a little while, and then they camped out in a tent in the backyard. A good time was had by all, but we all got very little sleep. In the morning I made muffins and sent them on their way! Happy 11th Birthday Paige!