Gâteau Michelle

So, for my son’s 7th birthday, he wanted a Fear Factor party complete with all the disgustingness of the tv show.  Easy as pie!

We started out with the invitations. Unfortuantely, I don’t have a picture of them on my computer but I will tell you about them. We cut flags out of yellow plastic material. Anyone who watched the show knows that it is all about the contestants retireving the flags. Hubby carefully ironed on the words “Fear Factor” to 40+ flags. Attached to the flags was a notecard sized invitation that was covered in worms- well pictures of worms actually- along with all of the pertinant information. They were totally cool! Props to the hubby for his creativity!

We lucked out that his birthday falls after Halloween becuase all the leftover candy is on sale. There were gummy bugs and body parts and eyeballs- all required eating for such a party. Of course, we did have to order some additional candy online because you just can’t find crunchy bugs at the store these days. We also ordered an asortment of fake bugs to put in the punch and stuff like that.

We had a great game that we played, which of course involved sticking your hands into all sorts of goo. It went like this:

First, you went to the big lexan that held way to much goo (cornstarch, water and blue food coloring). For parents,this is a scary enough proposition. The kids search thru the goo to find a small piece of paper that has a color on it. This color corresponds with the next part of  the game.

The kids then went to the table that held 4 black containers of other nasty goo protected by a giant bug (which would be door prizes later). They matched their paper to the bucket and stuck their hand in to retrieve a coin with a number on it. This would be used for the next game. The buckets contained either fish eyeballs (blueberry pie filling), smooshed brains (soggy oatmeal), arteries (spaghetti noodles and oil) or human eyeballs (grapes in oil). The kids loved it and the parents stared at us in disbelief that we would encourage all this messiness without the slightest concern that our house could be covered in sticky fingerprints. We did take that into consideration and had a bucket of soap and water that all little hands must use immediately following the bucket experience.

The kids would then take the number over to the tic tac toe game. We actually modified it to have pictures of frogs, bugs, eyeballs, spiders, etc that matched our candy. Kids were trying to get as much candy as they could. It was a huge hit!

We also had the kiddos make thier own party hats. I hate to buy party hats, and as I am a crafty person, I always try to have the kids make their own. Besides that, it gives them something to do while we wait for everyone else to arrive and the party begins. This year they made bug eyes. They were incredibly cute!!

Food is another important aspect of these parties. We had tarantula jigglers, bug punch, and a cockroach cake. We also had more normal fare such as pigs in blankets, baked beans and cheese ball puffs.

Some of our goodie bags had papers for door prizes in them. The winners got either one of the large bugs that were guarding the goo buckets or a Fear Factor prize that we ordered online from thier site. It was a fabulous time!