Karate Birthday Party!

So my oldest daughter turned 7 today and when I asked her months ago what kind of birthday party she wanted, she responded with "I want a karate party." I thought to myself, I hope she changes her mind by the time the party rolls around because I know nothing about karate and neither does she. For some reason she is really into it lately. Birthdays are big around our house and we celebrate them! I give my kids a choice of a bigger, more expensive gift (like a bike or something) or a party with friends, they have always chosen a friend party. I just can't see buying a big gift and then spending that much money on a party so they get one or the other. So she stayed with the karate theme and so I went to work! There was a surprising amount of info. on the web about karate parties but most were kids that take karate or going to a  dojo. We wanted it here at our home. So I called a local martial arts studio in our town and the lady instructor came out and taught the kids meditation, punches, kicks, she brought padded numchucks, padded sticks and played a game where they could hit each other with the padded sticks, they loved it! She spent about an hour with them. We played a ninja invaders game with balloons, not letting the ninjas (balloons) touch the floor. We played Sensai Says (like Simon Says). Found both of these suggestions on the web when I looked up karate birthday. I got lots of fun party decorations online too and at a local party store. We ate Ramen Noodles with chopsticks, the cake was decorated like a "gi". I made all the kids "gi's" out of large white T-shirts, cutting them down the middle, made black belts with felt fabric, using fabric glue I attached dragons I cut out of fabric to the backs of the "gi's". I made headbands by cutting strips of white fabric and put the kids names on them using a black fabric marker in a really cool ninja looking font I found online. We made Chinese Dragons using old sheets and dragon faces that I got at a party store. We sewed a tuck in the back of the sheet with some crepe streamers for a tail and tacked the sheet in the front so just the front kids face showed through and then they carried the dragon face in front of them. I could have done without the wind that decided to blow at our house today, but other than the decorations blowing around and having to do the ninja invaders game inside, it was a lot of fun. Much to my surprise! I encourage my children to try new things and am open to their ideas, and this was definitely not one of my choices, but a karate birthday can be a lot of fun!