Cowgirl and her Cowboy

Party Hoe Down

by Amy Patterson
 

The activity began with the girls getting their pictures taken by themselves and with their dad -easily be family photo if for a family activity.  Our secretary brought her digital camera and her printer and laptop - she took their picture than gave it a sepia tone - the girls and their dads came in western wear.  We also had extra hats and Mexican blanket ponchos and vests.  We also had fake mustaches for the dads - Oriental trading company sells them and they come sticky so you peel and stick.  It was a lot of fun seeing the dads with their fake staches.

After the picture we had a quick picture frame for them to make for their picture.  The dads were great sports and seemed to enjoy spending time with their daughters.  We had chili dogs, chips, dip, and watermelon for dinner.  We also had bowls of trail mix and veggies and dip in the area of the frame making so that they could munch and mingle while they did the frames.

After dinner we had a man in our ward who has been a professional line dance teacher come and he taught the dads and the girls 2 dances - oh it was so sweet to see them dance.

Decorations were fun - we secretly got pictures of the bishops in our stake and made wanted posters for them, and our secretary surprised us with wanted posters for us too.  Other decorations included a big blow up cactus, homemade quilts here and there, and 2 ladies in our presidency have girls who love horses and they had these fake plastic horses that were almost 2 feet tall, we also had saddles, and bridles and ropes around the room.  We were certain the men loved the decorations.

We had a few games going on during the arrival - we had lasso the horse game - child's rocking horse and hula hoops, we had a penny toss game and a drop a wooden clothespin into a cowboy boot game.  We also had a pin the mustache on the cowboy too.

Before the line dancing we played "who's your daddy?"  we picked 10 dads and daughters to participate - we put the girls in front of the curtain on the stage - then we had the big chalkboard on wheels on the stage - with a quilt over it - we set it up so you couldn't see who was behind it - then we had the dads roll up their pant leg and the girls got to look at the legs and decide who was their daddy.

Then we played "Are you my daughter?"  This was set up like the dating game - one dad on one side of the stage - then 3 girls on the other side - we had the dad ask the girls different questions and he had to figure out which one was his daughter - the answers were too funny.

We had several dads tell us - you need to do this again next year.  Our stake is a little spread out so I think it was fun for the dads to see old friends and visit too.

Oh dessert was brownie sundaes.  We were going to have apple crisp but decided the girls would probably prefer the brownie - and it was easier too.