For Evan’s 4th birthday, we camped with a handful of friends and relatives. We rented four side-by side campsites and designated one campsite as the festivity area! We love Disney and their camping is just as great as everything else that they do!!
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The Invitation
We made a bindle bag attached to a stick for carrying over your shoulder. Each element of this invitation contained surprises for the guests. The stick was actually a detailed map of the Disney campground, and the bindle contained supplies for camping, along with the paper invitation below. The supplies included compasses, magnifying glasses, glow sticks, and flash lights.
This stick was made by placing the map from Disney on wooden sticker paper and rolling it up.
The Color Scheme
Nature inspired our color choices of green, blue, and brown with lots of burlap for our camping theme. We found these woodsy printables for the party on Etsy.
The Cake
When you’re away from your kitchen, take steps to make it easier on yourself! Instead of having cake we decided to go with proportioned s’mores cupcakes. We really love these s’mores cupcakes recipe found on Martha Stewart here. The bottom of the cupcake is chocolate and graham cracker and the top has a meringue marshmallow buttercream. The logs are straw cookies and the fire is melted-down orange and yellow hard candy. The “fire flames” are created when you break up the sheet of candy.
S’mores kits were made for our campfire sing-along later in the evening. The kits included homemade graham crackers, homemade marshmallows, Nutella in some kits, and spreadable chocolate in others (so we didn’t have to worry about the chocolate melting). If you’re hesitant to tackle homemade marshmallows and graham crackers feel free to buy them. If you’ve never tried making marshmallows, you should give it a go because it’s magic to watch your ingredients transform into a white fluffy cloud (and the taste of both homemade graham crackers and marshmallows is SO great).
Kids filled kraft mini Chinese take-out containers with their own trail mix creation. We renamed all of the snack foods with fun camp related labels. For example, pretzel rods became match sticks and Cheetos became flames.
The Food
We had one of our favorite caterers come to help us with dinner. We were so thankful that we didn’t have to cook too much in the outdoors.
We brought some sausages and hot dogs so that the adults and kids could roast them over the fire. We made an overnight steel cut cherry almond oatmeal in a slow cooker for the next morning. We also brought an electric hot plate so that we could cook eggs, bacon, and toast for the next morning. Luckily, Disney has convenient stores that sell breakfast staples so we didn’t have to worry about refrigeration overnight. Just make sure that you pack a lot of water and various drinks (hot chocolate is a nice touch too).
The Decorations
We posted our schedule for the next few days so everyone would know the planned events. Disney has so many fun things to do at their campground!
Each family had their own banner to show where they would be staying for the night.
We had two tents at each campsite and one family was in each tent. We thought it would be fun to create teams for each campsite. We made these rustic campsite signs with stakes, wooden plaques, and a wood burning tool.
We brought in large hay bales that we set up around the fire and placed pieces of burlap on top of them. These proved to be functional and very fitting for our camping theme.
The Entertainment
These scavenger cards were popular with the kids and can be found on Etsy here. Each guest used a log pencil and brown paper bag to collect all their items.
This is Evan finding his scavenger hunt items. Of course Evan found his stick first, and it was so important to him that it didn’t make it to the bag. What is it with boys and their sticks?
Near our campsites the kids enjoyed a tether ball area.
Disney rents golf carts; we rented a couple of them for our guests. The kids adored riding around on these golf carts!
One of kids checking out the Disney camping map. So much to do– so little time!
When you’re four, all you need for entertainment is open space for running around! The kids also played duck, duck, goose.
Later that night we all watched a movie outdoors. The kids had glow sticks, popcorn, and the s’mores kits. This events began with campfire sing along followed by a viewing of Frozen.
The next day we all headed to the Tri-Circle-D Farm for some pony rides. This farm is also on the Disney campgrounds!
Evan at first smell! But he came around to really enjoy his pony ride.
We took advantage of the great playgrounds on the Disney campgrounds. Disney also has fun pools that offer another form of entertainment.
We left the campsites behind so that we could visit the Magic Kingdom. Evan was so excited that he was finally old enough to buy a magic band.
One of Evan’s presents was getting a magic band with his own Mickey decoration on it.
We are so lucky to have Disney World right in our own backyard! I’m not what you would call a roughing it kind of gal, but Disney made camping so much more accessible (the bathrooms in the campground were like hotel bathrooms).
The Favors
We put the favors in with the kids’ invitation so that they could utilize the supplies during the camping trip. When the kids opened their bindle bags above, they found these surprises inside.
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