How to throw Leap Day Birthday
Party
(and for that
Invisible Birthday in
the "off years")
Cyndi, a
Leap Mom, shares what she did and offers help for future
parties.
See below for some other party ideas sent in 2000, 2004 and
2008! |
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ALLISON'S BIRTHDAY PARTY INVITATION
(Submitted
by her Mom, Rhonda)
I want to share my
daughter's birthday party invitation for this year. My
little Leapling will be two and is
obsessed with DORA THE EXPLORER. I ordered it from
alloccasioncards.net and she did a great job
personalizing it for Allison. Click on the invitation to see a
larger version. |
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A Leap
Year birthday party that is being planned in Joppa, Maryland
for Benjamin Dalrymple (DOB 02/29/2000).
This will be his official first birthday!! We are planning
a "leap" party at a local gymnastics center in Harford
County. |
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Leap back up!
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The
Game Show and Birthday sLEAPover
If you're going to have a sleepover, remember it's a
sLEAPover!
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Shana, the Mom of a Leap Day baby with a great idea,
wrote in to share with you what kind of party she is
throwing for her Leap Day baby who will be 12/3. They
are having a Game Show and Birthday sLEAPover.
The party goes from February 28th to February 29th. |
The following game ideas came from American Girl
Magazine, May/June 2001 [but boys
may play too!] we fixed them to fit our needs and
decided what prizes to give out.
Celebrity Squares
The Newlyfriends Game
The Grocery Game
Higher or Lower
Who Wants to be a Smarty Pants?
We added:
Pictionary
Wheel of Fortune
Let's Make a Deal
and when the Leap Day baby opens their presents on the
29th we will
be playing the (Your child's name here) Trivia Game. |
Some of the prizes include Ring Pops, candy necklaces, hot
wheels as the "brand new cars", and other
things along the lines of game show prizes. The prizes can be
chosen depending on gender and age.
The Game Show/sLEAPover is for a few of Lara's friends. When the
family comes over on 2/29 at 2:29 pm,
they will be leaping for joy with our frog theme. We found some
paper goods with frogs on them, otherwise
Lara chose a shade of green for plates, etc. Oriental
Trading has some frog items good for party favors.
They also have a felt frog hat which Lara will be wearing. My
husband will be baking the cake and shaping
it into a lily pad. I'm always searching for another frog item
to add to the party.
Hope this is helpful to someone.
Shana
If anyone wants more info regarding the
party Shana is throwing for her daughter, please e-mail
Shana
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This year 2008
"Pretty in Pink"
With Lara turning Sweet
16, Lara and I have planned a dance party at a local
place. She has invited 60
of her nearest and dearest friends (how things
change...I think there were twelve girls at her last
Leap
Day Party).
What's nice is we've kept
the theme simple "Pretty in Pink". Lara loves the 80s
movies and we try to
support the breast cancer funds since my sister passed
away almost a year and a half ago from breast
cancer.
Everyone is required to
wear something pink to get in to the party and Lara has
asked for no gifts, but
rather for donations to be made to Susan G. Komen.
We ordered pink silicone
bracelets with her name and the date of the party; bags
of pink cotton candy;
and I stocked up on pink m & ms in October. The place
we're having it will do all of the decorations in
pink. Lara is completely excited.
So, just thought I'd say
hi and share what we're doing. Shana Miller |
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Special Guest At A
Party
Fiona runs a Rainbow Unit of 5-7 year old girls before
they move on to Brownies. There was a little Rainbow
girl in their unit who was born on February 29. Being
that birthdays were a big deal, she inevitably had to
explain hers.
The Rainbow Leap Day baby
has moved on to Brownies. But her old Rainbow Unit is
inviting her back, as a
'Special Guest' and making her a birthday card with as
many interesting facts about this special day as
possible.
They will be using the
Jump-Rope Rhyme for the card and will highlight some
famous Leapies. They are even
planning on a 'froggy' birthday cake. Everyone will have
fun and learn something about this special day.
Any new ideas for 5-7
year olds would be great. Do you have any other ideas?
If so, please
email Raenell
so she can post it on this page.
Happy leaping, gribbit,
gribbit,
Fiona, 10th Roundhay Rainbows |
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Saylor's
First Birthday Party |
The party is at our home in California
and will have all her and our family
friends.
My parents are flying in from Atlanta.
The photo, below, is what we are using
for
Saylor's 1st party invite and for the
cake. I wrote the poem for the
invitation. You
may use it if you like.
Heather Schmidt |
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Leap on over and have some fun,
Saylor's turning 4 but really
just one,
There will be pony rides, a
jumpy, cotton candy too,
There's a hoppin' good time just
waiting for you. |
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Leap back
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Leap Day Festival
Brady will be 2/8
this year!! The plans are in the works. We are going to use
some of the same ideas we
used for his First Leap Day Birthday Party. The theme was Leap
Day Festival. Feel free to use any of our
ideas...it made for such a fun party!
The invitation had
some Leap Year trivia on it, I would share it but it was
about Leap Year's ending in 0,
such as 2000, but not 2004. Other Leap Year trivia you find
(on this site) might be fun on the invitation.
We had several
"festival booths" that stayed open. So we did not play 1
game at a time, the kids wandered
around to each booth as they pleased, just like a festival!
Kids really like
tickets, so I had a roll, and each booth required tickets,
but of course the tickets were free!
I had a vinyl
pennant made saying, "Brady's First Leap Day Birthday 2000"
I had permanent markers for
each guest to sign it...after they signed, they got a bunch of
tickets. (For the pennant, look in the yellow
pages under "banners" and they should be able to make one for
you. It's a nice keepsake for the Leaper.
For each game,
they got a prize, win or not (I don't believe in games where
kids lose at this tender age).
They had lunch bags to put their prizes in...have them put
their names on the bags or do it for them. They
could decorate the bags, too.
We had a bounce
house, which we called a Leap House, 1 ticket please.
We had a snack bar
with popcorn, cotton candy, soda & pizza ~ 1 ticket per item
please.
We had a teenaged
girl paint faces.
We had a
blind-fold candy tasting game (there were a few types of
candy to taste and guess the kinds).
We had a frog
fishing game. Use light weight plastic frogs. Our pond was a
Hoola Hoop. I made fishing
poles out of dowels with string, with masking tape on the end
so the tape was the hook to catch the frogs,
it was fun for 4 year olds. This year, we may try to take it
up a notch somehow.
We made Leap Day
Commemorative Plates. Each child got to make & keep a
plate. The design is up to
each child. We wrote the special date around the edge. The
plate kits are available through
http://makit.com
It is something they do with markers, then you send them
to the company to be made into plates, so you
have to deliver them to each guest at a later date. But they
are wonderful & last forever and are dishwasher
safe. The web site has other items to choose from as well.
I bought
inexpensive packages of white T-shirts and printed iron-on
transfers with my PC. Each guest got a
shirt that said, "Where were you Leap Day 2000? I was at
Brady's Leap Day Festival!" The guest of honor's
shirt was red, his favorite color.
Some booths could
only be done once, such as the plate making booth, others
can be done over & over,
even if you run out of prizes, they can still play the games.
After they did
booths for about an hour and a half, we had cake (decorated
with toy frogs the birthday boy got
to keep) and opened presents. If time is left, there's always
the Leap House & games to return to!
Saylor, whose
party plans are above, is our little friend! She was born
during Brady's First Leap Day Festival!
We were going to have a joint party for them this year but
decided it would be way too big with all of their
combined friends & family. So we are having Brady's in the
morning then Saylor's in the afternoon...some
guests will attend both parties!
It will be a
GREAT Leap Day!
Cyndi |
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A
sLEAPover With Kermit Theme!
We are
also having a sLEAP over party, for our daughter
Bridgette who will be 8/2 (due to our schedule we
are having it on the 27th - 28th)!
Being a
"Leapling" she loves frogs - especially Kermit the Frog,
so that is kind of our theme... everything
we got for party favors are green and/or froggy. I
downloaded a Kermit picture
and made the invitations.
We are having a friend
of ours make a Kermit cake!
Plus there will be lots
of fun kid friendly
food & snacks for the night - ending with a chocolate
chip pancake
breakfast. |
Some of the activities the girls will be doing are:
- painting each other's
nails (green of course)
- each girl is getting a
pillow case and decorating it with fabric paint
with each one writing their name on our daughter's
case for her to
remember this special day.
- dancing
- watching the movie
Freaky Friday (the new one)
- playing Twister
- having a "Mummy Wrap"
race where they pair up in teams of two -
one is the wrapper the other is the "mummy" they
have to use crepe
paper streamers (again green! ) and whichever team
can wrap their
mummy first without breaking the streamer paper
wins.
- in the invitation's
I'm asking the girls parents to let me know one
unique
fact about their daughter - so that I can make up a
matching game where
the girls have to
try to guess which fact belongs to which girl.
- we also made up silly
names for each girl - that will be put on a sticky
name tag to wear all night - the girls will have to
call each other by their
silly names for the entire party!
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Then
on the 29th our family (9 adults and 3 kids - includes
grandparents, an aunt & uncle and 2 cousins)
will be going to a local seafood restaurant for dinner
where they give you $10 off on your birthday (she loves
scallops) and she can open her presents there!
Hope these ideas can be
helpful to others still wondering how to celebrate!
Leapingly, The Rhodes
Brian, Melissa &
Bridgette |
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A BIG 'KID' SHARES IDEAS |
Raenell here, Emma, in Australia, will be turning 24, on
her 6th Birthday. Her guests will participate in
age-appropriate snacks and games I thought you should
know about. She explains below... |
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will be making Fairy bread and playing "Pass-the-parcel"
Fairy Bread is simply
white bread, covered in sprinkles - a regular at 6th
birthday parties in Australia.
"Pass-the-parcel" is a
game where a small gift is wrapped up in many sheets of
wrapping paper.
Everyone sits in a circle, with someone controlling the
music. When the music stops, whoever is holding
the gift, has to unwrap one layer of paper before the
music comes back on. Once the music is back on,
it is passed around the circle once again, until the
music stops. Whoever opens the last bit of wrapping
paper is the winner, and keeps the gift." |
Now that sounds like a lot of fun. The music that would
go great with this game is the Leap Year Waltz.
It's an instrumental of happy, pleasant music. It's by
Ivor Novello and it sells on ebay and other places on
the Internet. I think I'll play this at my party! (I
have one of the Ivor Novello CDs with the Leap Year
Waltz
on it). Thanks for sharing Emma! |
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A New Family Tradition?
Macy Diane Williams of Oklahoma, USA was born in 2000
I'm looking forward to my
daughter's first birthday in just a few weeks! I enjoyed
the ideas about
how to celebrate on your parent's site, and thought I'd
share an idea of my own. We are going to
put Macy's current picture in our local newspaper with
the caption
"Happy
first birthday to our Leap Day Baby!"
We will probably
continue the tradition each Leap Year. I have another
daughter who will turn one
in March, and I also plan to send picture post cards to
friends and relatives with the girls' pictures
on it and the caption, "We celebrated two first birthdays
this year!" As she gets older, I plan to
make each Leap Day super special, and hopefully will think
of even more ideas. |
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Hey
everybody, its time to cheer,
Its 2004 and it’s a LEAP YEAR!
It’s my birthday and I’m here to say,
I’ve waited four years to celebrate this very day!
Its 2004 ~ yep, it’s my LEAP DAY
And I’d like you to celebrate with me in a very special
way!
I’m planning on taking you to the Build-a-Bear store,
woo-hoo,
Because I’m turning eight, but technically just two!
You see, Leap Day comes but only so often,
And usually my birthday isn’t on a calendar, how rotten!
It’s my LEAP DAY birthday on February 29th,
No other way I’d like to spend it, than with friends of
mine-th!!!
So, come one, come all,
We’re sure to have a ball!
Please come to my house on
2-29, 3549 Royal Stewart Court (Legendary Run)
Arrive at 11:45 to depart promptly at 12:00 to build our
bears
We will be busy there from 12:30 to 2:30 having lots of
fun
We’ll each make our own bear and choose a t-shirt for it
to wear!
We will return to my place for yummies a plenty around
3:00 or so
But when the clock strikes 4:00-4:30, I’m afraid it will
be time to go.
RSVP BY FEBRUARY 25TH FOR SURE
BY CALLING MY MOM AT 943-123 FOUR!
See you then,
Your friend, Carsen |
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Davin
Turns 4
My son Davin will be
turning 4 (1) this year. We are doing everything in green leap
frogs!
We have a frog
piñata and leap frog potato sacks for "leap frog" games. Gummy
frogs for
a snacks and the list continues. I love this web-site for ideas.
Hallmark and other party
stores really need to do more for LEAP DAY! I did find a lot of
great frog stuff on line at
Oriental Trading Company.
Melanie (Davin's Mom) |
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RAENELL
CELEBRATES HER 11TH BIRTHDAY
LIKE AN 11 YEAR OLD!
We had
such a good time at the
Build-A-Bear Workshop in Washington Square. And for
those of you who
were expecting us at the Clackamas Town Center location,
I apologize, but we had to change locations.
The 7 girls I Mentor and
I each built an animal. Emily built a dog, Tristina,
Samantha and Molly each built
monkeys, and Sarah, Ashley, Brittany and I all built
bears. Of course, I was the Birthday Girl so I got to
wear
the special sticker. Everything was about, and for, me,
Thankyouverymuch. ;)
We dressed each of our
animals in outfits of our choice. There are so many to
choose from it's amazing.
We were really impressed with the quality of everything.
The store itself is bright, colorful and festive. The
Party Hostess was great and always cheery, she guided us
through the whole process.
Building the bear was
very cool. And the best part was when our animal got a
heart. That was really quite
cool and very special. My bear is that much more special
because of the heart procedure. I'm not going to
tell you. You'll have to find out yourself. And for
those of you who already know, you know what I mean. I'm
sure you can understand why my Leap Day Bear is so
special to me now.
Each animal has a
commemorative birth certificate showing the Leap Day
date of birth. My bears' name is
Leapton Von Leap. He's a boy. |
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Looking for gifts for your
little Leaplings' birthday? Check
the LEAP THIS shop! |
If
you have some Leap Day Baby Birthday Party 2008
stories, and pictures, to share, please do.
They will help others for next Leap Year. Please
email
Raenell
with your submissions.
If you used any of the artwork or poetry from our
site, please send us a copy for our archives.
You may send them to
Raenell.
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