For my daughter's 8th birthday, we had a Laura Ingalls Wilder theme. We had been reading her books and got the ideas from our reading. Our invitation had a covered wagon on the front, we got this from Googles images.  The invitation had a picture of Little House on the Prairie book cover inside.  We asked the girls to come wearing a white top any style. The address labels had little log cabin on them (google images) and the return address labels had covered wagons.    When the girls arrived we gave them a calico apron and kerchief to put on. They all looked like little prairie girls! My mother-in-law had made these. The girls colored a prairie girl page and did a word search while we waited for everyone to arrive.  The coloring page was from an image we had from their goody bag (more on that later) and I created the word search from characters and things from Laura's books. Once everyone was here, I read a short story about Laura's life.  The story incorporated different activities that we'd take a break for.  The first was making butter.  The second was making candles. Because these were second graders, I bought sheets of beeswax so there was no hot wax. The girls loved this and when they were done I put them in their goody bags.  The next activity was a barn pinata (Pa had built a barn in Kansas territory) and the last activity was making an Indian" bead necklace like Laura and Mary had done for Carrie. These beads and string were bought at AC Moore.  Next we sat down for cake which I had our bakery scan the cover of Little House on the Prairie book. They did a beautiful job.  We had home made corn bread with the butter we had made and molassess cookies. We also had train cut-out cookies. I found the cutter on the internet.  We had chocolates in the shape of trains again bought from the internet. The train was significant in that Laura's first train ride was from Minnesota to Dakota Territoty and once there Pa worked for the trains.  This was incorporated into the story. The plates looked like blue tin bought from Joanne's I used jelly jars for the cups white cloth napkins.  The placemats looked like a quilt bought them at the dollar store and used a deep red table cloth. I also bought a covered wagon ornament from Hobby Lobby and put it in the middle of the table (with a single ornament hook) and had two pine cone candles. I hung 8 pine cones from our chandelier. Another food item was maple sugar candies. We also found red kerchief candies at Hobby Lobby at put those on the table.  The drink was lemonade in a largeglass pitcher. After cake we opened presents. For the last half hour (the party was two hours) I had a fiddler come in and play for the girls.  He taught them a few square dance steps and they had a blast. For a cheaper alternative you could play a CD. Pa would play his fiddle almost every night for his family and that's why we did this.  For Goody Bags we bought red gingham cloth bags from the internet.  There was a very small snow globe bought from the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum (on-line) two candy sticks a log cabin sticker activity book and a Prairie Girl Paper Doll. These last two were bought from Reuels on-line.  I also made small loaves of corn bread and put one in each bag. So the girls brought these bags home the candles they made (each made two) their apron and kerchief and their goody bag candy. I game them a separate bag for these.  My daughter and I had a great time planning this party and the girls had a great time. One of the mothers called the next day and said her daughter couldn't stop talking about it.  I hope another mom can use these ideas!"