Carla finally decided on her birthday plans: we will do an escape room. I am… skeptical. But the people who run the escape room venue seem confident that the kids will have a blast even if they don’t “escape.”
Carla also kind of wants a loose spy/detective theme which is… challenging to find décor for. So I am still working on that. I’m leaning toward all-black décor (the escape room facility has a party room) and then buying the kids dark sunglasses, spy notebooks and invisible-ink pens, magnifying glasses, and fake mustaches as party favors. Maybe if I am really on top of things I will give each kid a manila folder with some spy/detective stuff in it – like “how to choose your spy name” and “crack this code” type games. We’ll see.
For her cake, Carla initially wanted a chocolate cake with lemon curd. My dear, sweet husband, upon hearing this choice, reacted with a Gross Face and a loud, “YUCK” (sigh) and so she rethought her choice and now just wants a chocolate cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Listen, I was game to try chocolate with lemon curd! Chocolate: good! Lemon curd: good! (Joey Tribbiani voice.) But… maybe this will be better. For her party, I plan to make black velvet cupcakes – to complement the spy/detective theme – and top them with these adorable magnifying glass toppers. I will order these black cupcake carriers so that kids can take the cupcakes home (in case Covid transmission continues to be high when Carla’s birthday party comes around). (Everyone will wear masks during the party and escape room.)
Carla has only two gift requests, which we fulfilled. And my husband and I came up with a few other ideas that we think she’ll love.
A Barbie motorcycle: I don’t know WHY, but this has been on her wish list for at least a year. I finally found this one in stock at Walmart, and was glad to order it for her. It’s kind of tame for a motorcycle, but it does come with a dog which she will like.
A 3-D pen: I am honestly not looking forward to finding 3-D creations all over the house, but this has been Carla’s TOP REQUEST for the past couple of months. Whenever I ask what she wants for her birthday, this is it. And I know she will love it.
With only two specific requests, my husband and I have been tossing around some other ideas that we think she might enjoy.
A new board game: I’ve heard so many great things about Ticket to Ride, and have had it in my cart for previous gift-giving occasions… I think we’ll finally get it for her.
A LEGO activity kit: Carla still loves LEGO, and this Gear Bots kit seems really fun. (And less expensive than a LEGO set.)
A joke book: Santa Claus brought my husband a book of dad jokes last Christmas, and Carla honestly gets more of a kick out of them than anyone else. So perhaps she needs her own book of jokes to thrill us with. Maybe she will bring it on the road trip and get us all chuckling along with her.
Animal erasers: These little “desk pets” were all the rage in third grade, and I know Carla would love to have her own eraser menagerie.
A book of birds: Carla LOVES birds, and when we go for walks together she often regales me with facts about the birds we see. I think she would get hours of enjoyment out of this atlas of amazing birds.
A book of beasts: When I was looking for bird books, I came across this book of forgotten beasts and I’m guessing it would also spark Carla’s interest.
A set of bath bombs: My husband is opposed to this gift (it is too expensive for what it is, he says, and he’s not wrong), but I think Carla – who is newly obsessed with Pokemon – would LOVE these Pokemon bath bombs. (I tried watching one of the Pokemon TV shows she has been so into lately and I don’t get it. At all. But she will regale me for as long as I will listen with amazing feats of electrical types and ground types and water types. None of it makes any sense to me.)
A shaved ice machine: This is another impractical/expensive idea that my husband’s voice of prudence will probably overrule… but Carla loves shaved ice and would LOVE making her own snow cones.
An art case: Not that we don’t already possess THOUSANDS of crayons and markers and colored pencils, but this case of drawing supplies would be SO fun. I remember having something like this when I was a kid, and it was a highly prized possession. I also think it would be good to bring along on the road trip; a good way to keep all the utensils tidy and contained.
A fun new novel: I am always trying to encourage Carla’s (limited) desire to read, and this Swistle-recommended novel combines several of Carla’s interests.
A reading timer: This is something I’ve considered before – and it would probably make a better stocking stuffer than a birthday gift. But I think Carla would enjoy timing herself as she reads.
A sewing book: Carla hasn’t spent a lot of time sewing recently, and I hate to think of her sewing machine sitting there unused. Maybe this book would reignite her interest?
A decoder set: Considering that Carla is interested in spy/detective stuff recently, I wonder if she might enjoy this decoder activity set. This would be another good Road Trip! option, too.
A fingerprint kit: Along similar lines, this fingerprinting kit might be a lot of fun.
If you have (or have had) a nine-year-old in your life, what have been some of the top gifts they’ve enjoyed?
Those are all fun ideas and the shaved ice machine reminded me of the Snoopy Sno Cone machine that was always in the Sears catalogue, that I coveted year after year and never got. Also, her initial cake request reminded me of when my husband and I were first dating and we went for ice cream. He got two scoops: a chocolate, and a lime sorbet. Together. The ice cream guy was like “…on the same cone?” and it was NOT good. Lime: good! Chocolate: good! Together: sorry, Joey, bad.
I TOO wanted the Snoopy Sno Cone machine year after year and never got it!!! (Also an Easy Bake oven.)
Do you have the Sleeping Queens card game? That is a big hit at our house, and we love Ticket to Ride too 🙂 That 3d pen looks so cool, she is going to love it!
My grandmother used to make a chocolate lemon pound cake. It was…not my favorite. When we lived in Scotland I was deeply skeptical of the chocolate-orange combo that’s popular in the UK, but it turned out to be really delicious. This makes me wonder if chocolate-lemon might be tastier than I used to think it was.
So many great gift ideas! Carla has such a wide range of interests; she sounds like a cool kid! We had the shaved ice maker and it was a hit for a few years with my son and his friends when they were about Carla’s age. I have 3 nieces/great-nieces only 3-4 years older than Carla and we used to get wish lists around Christmas, but I don’t remember much from there except for dance related stuff — leotards, hair pins, etc. I want the 3D pen for myself!
Sounds like a great party! LOL about your husband’s reaction to that cake. Lime was and is still a favorite flavor for my so I could see him choosing something similar.
This is a genius birthday party theme and your ideas for favors and decor and such is brilliant. Well done.
A book safe is what I would add to your list of presents if she doesn’t have one already. It’s cheap and perfect for that age. Alex already has one on her list because her siblings got one when they were in the nine year old range and she was a baby then and was rudely not given a book safe.
Those are great gift ideas; at first I thought you were getting all of them and was non-plussed. 🙂 Love the theme of the party and the cake and cupcake flavors. (not the lemon curd one though)
My husband and I played Ticket to Ride over the weekend. We like it enough that we’re thinking of getting a different version of it, maybe one set in England. I’ve never seen a reading timer bookmark and I like it. I’d prefer chocolate cake with orange curd if’n I was making that. Don’t know that you need to know that, but I’m sharing here!
Please report back on the 3D pen as my own nearly-9yo is similar obsessed with the idea. If I may share two experiences, we have loved the Melissa and Doug detective sets, but any fingerprinting kit we have had makes a giant mess. YMMV.
A friend of mine in elementary had a shaved ice machine, but this was the late 80s/early 90s so it was manual. You had to freeze water in these molds and then crank it to make shaved ice. It was SO MUCH WORK. I love shaved ice so I could get behind a shaved ice machine but my husband would be a hard pass because we already have so many kitchen gadgets!
What a fun age to shop for, though! I have no gift ideas because I have only bought books or given money for college accounts to my nieces and nephews. her party sounds really fun. I would love to go to an escape room!
Oh jeez, Suzanne – the nine year olds in my life have all been boys and a long time ago. But all of your ideas seem to be something she would enjoy. The escape room venue is GENUIS! It really is. I’ve only done one and absolutely loved it (I was skeptical going in). We got really stuck at one point and we were subtly given a hint (unasked for) that helped us move on. I’m sure it would be the same; particularly since it’s a children’s escape room.
We LOVE Ticket to Ride, including my 9 y/o– it’s hard to find a game that’s equally fun for parents AND kids, but this one is.
It sounds like you have a lot of great ideas, but in case you want more, Noah’s favorite present when he was nine was an Extreme Bubble Making Kit, basically just a rope loop on a stick you dip into bubble solution to make huge bubbles. BTW, I can say the 3D pen was a big hit with North. They were just a little older when they got theirs and they used it on and off until a couple years ago.
I think an escape room party sounds like so much fun!
1) We were making ice cream and needed chipped ice. My husband was using a hand weight to crush the ice we had purchased at a gas station and it was hard and exhausting. All of a sudden, I remembered that I had a Snoopy Sno Cone machine that I had moved with me from childhood and that it would chip the ice. My husband was very displeased that I hadn’t remembered earlier.
2) I purchased Crayola art kits for basically all of my nieces and nephews between the ages of 8 and 11. They all love it. I think it’s great for all kids and I highly approve of it as a gift!
This sounds so fun!
You are just amazing at these gift ideas – some of the best gift-lists I’ve EVER SEEN.
My 11-year old LOVES her Wreck It Journal (it’s a journal filled with prompts like: cover this page in polka dots, use a food item to draw a picture on this page. The ones I’m making up are very boring and lame compared to the actual ones. I have had a lot of fun doing pages with her and she has been working through it for MONTHS, including when friends come to play. She has the original black-covered book.
My daughter also loves CodeNames. She has both the words and pictures; I think we like the picture version the best. Very fun.
I love that book timer. I’ve never seen anythng like it. How brilliant (yet simple and quasi-obvious. Like, why didn’t I think of that?)
My daughter got a Wreck it Journal at around that age, too, and enjoyed it (for a hot minute).
She also loooooves escape rooms and did her first one around this same time, I believe. I bet it will be a birthday HIT!
I am glad to see Carla still asks for kid-appropriate stuff and not clothes and makeup 😉