A Dragon Birthday Party!

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Sophia's Dragon Birthday Party via I'm Not the Nanny

We celebrated a milestone birthday for Sophia this weekend. Twice actually. We ate cake on her actual 10th birthday, but we also hosted a small gathering of her friends over the weekend. I can’t believe my oldest child is 10 years old!

It took Sophia some time to decide on a theme for her party, but she eventually chose a dragon theme for her birthday party. Western dragons, to be exact (as opposed to Chinese/eastern ones). She specifically didn’t want a How to Train Your Dragon party, which became a challenge. I don’t mind crafting a few things for a party, but I usually purchase most of the decorations and goody bags.  I try to keep things low key, low stress (for me), and budget-friendly. Thank goodness for Amazon Prime’s 1-day shipping.

We were having too much fun and I didn’t take many photos, but I wanted to share what we did for the dragon themed birthday party.

Dragon Themed Food

Dragon cookie cake via I'm Not the Nanny

Instead of traditional cake and frosting, I made a cookie cake in my cast iron skillet. Confession: I bought a chocolate chip cookie mix. You can easily use refrigerated cookie dough and spread it out in a cake pan. This cake was one packet of Betty Crocker cookie mix baked for 20 minutes at 350F in a 12-inch cast iron.

I bought a Safari Love Dragon for the cake topper. It’s a gorgeous dragon figurine! Frosting was also pre-made that I piped from a ziptop bag.

Dragon Theme Party Food  at birthday party via I'm Not the Nanny

Food was pretty basic kid-friendly nosh. We renamed them for the party:

  • Dragon fireballs (cheese balls)
  • Chicken legs (chicken nuggets)
  • Dragon convention(dino shaped nuggets)
  • Dragon tears (pomegranate arils)
  • Fiery trees & logs (broccoli, carrots, and roasted red pepper hummus)
  • Dragon treats (Swedish fish)
  • Dragon juice (equal parts cranberry juice with soda water. We used our Soda Stream to carbonate the water. You can also make these balsamic cherry shirley temples.)

Garden of Dragon Nuggets at birthday party via I'm Not the Nanny

Dragon Decorations

Decorations were balloons and streamers that the kids put up. I was happy to let them handle the decorations. Who cares if it’s not perfect? We hung these adorable inflatable dragons around the living room and dining room.

Dragon Party Activities and Crafts

I’d planned on three activities for the kids. They loved the sheep toss and dragon gliders so much, we never made it to the dragon drool craft (slime). As for the gliders, Sophia made a giant bullseye target and we taped it to the wall.

The sheep toss was the hit of the party! Here’s a video of my husband and Jaxson testing out the launcher. The sheep toss was inspired by the sheep game from How to Train Your Dragon 2. The kids decorated jumbo marshmallows using pretzels and food safe markers to look like sheep. My husband rigged a catapult with a plastic ladle and bike helmet. The kids then tried to catapult their “sheep” into baskets we set out.

Goodie bags contained leftover Halloween candy, some extra dinosaur foam gliders (they looked like dragons), and these ultra-cool sticky dragons. I slapped some dragon stickers on a brown paper lunch bags to hold everything in.

Of course if I’d planned a bit earlier, I could have just purchased a dragon birthday party kit.

Whew! The party was a hit. Everyone had a blast–event he parents who hung out with us while our kids ran amok.

Happy 10th birthday to my big girl, Sophia!