We just celebrated our Lord's birthday and the New Year is coming up, so I thought I would share some of my favorite birthday parties that we have done in the past.
All of my children's birthdays are at the beginning of the year. We wanted them roughly 3 years and 2 years apart. What we didn't think about when we planned it like that, was all their birthdays are one after another. If I could turn back time.....{Cher's voice in my head.}
Some of these parties were before we went digital and before blogging. So, there are limited pictures.
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Patience's 3rd Birthday was a Go Diego Go party!
I'm not really into characters. The kids love them though. Patience's favorite show is still
Go Diego Go! So, I opted more for the Rainforest part of the show than the characters in most of the decorations.
We used various colors of green streamers all around the room to make it look like vines. I also went to the teacher supply store and bought a rain forest bulletin board package. It had palm trees and birds that we taped to the walls.
Since Diego is Hispanic, we had a
Taco Bar for the food and
Tamales.
I made those
animal print cakes and the
Diego cupcake cake. We also had chips and salsa, pineapples and gummi frogs on the table.
The kids decorated their own
Field Journals with Diego stickers. I buy a lot of party stuff off of Oriental Trading.com
They played pin the
Badge on Diego.
We had 3 obstacles that the kids went through in order to rescue the Koquee frog.
We also played "Diego Says" act like a frog, tiger, etc.
The house was decorated with these
balloons everywhere as well. We put the favors in these cute
animal print bags and also gave out
safari hats.
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Noah's 4th birthday Treasure party
My son wasn't really into pirates at that age, so we done a
Treasure theme instead.
These Treasure Boxes were $1 at Michael's. We spray painted them blue ahead of time. The kids decorated them with jewels and glitter paints.
I also ordered pirate hat cookies for them to munch on while they worked.
For the invites, we made a
Treasure Map and crumbled them up. We then burned the edges and rolled them up to pass out. I really loved how they looked.
For decorations, we did a mesh of various ideas. I liked the ocean theme and added a few pirate elements such a foam sword and eye patch. I sprinkled some pearls and fake coins on top of the table.
I found this
mesh and had the kids make sea animals out of construction paper to add onto it.
We made a
Treasure Map for the kids to follow in order to find the Treasure. We spray painted a foam ice chest and filled it with Ring Pops, Pearl Necklaces, Candy Coins and all kinds of treasure items.
The cake was really cute. It was a Treasure Box filled with pearls and coins.
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Maelyn's 6th birthday was an Alice in Wonderland party!
Our little "Alice."
We had a Mad Hatter Tea Party inside the house.
We had tissue flowers everywhere. The kids put jewels on the cups. There were "Drink Me and "Eat Me" signs on the table. Vases were filled with giant lollipops. The ceiling had paper lanterns strung.
We did
Finger Foods for the guests. Sandwiches cute with a cookie cutter, hot dog butterflies, fruit with a marshmallow fluff dip, tortellini's with sauce to dip, chocolate covered pretzels.
Noe made this
doorknob guy for our front door.
We played pin the
Smile on the Cheshire Cat.
The favors that the guests received.
The backyard was inspired by the Queen of Hearts. We put roses in our trees. We also had croquet set up for the guests to play. At one table I printed pictures of big roses for the children to paint red. I used a deck of cards strung together with ribbon to put along the fence. Of course, we had our lawn flamingos.
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Maelyn's 1st birthday was the Cat in the Hat!
I don't have that many pictures of this day.
For favors we bought everyone the book Cat in the Hat. So, we had the books scattered throughout the house for decorations. We had fishbowls filled with Goldfish crackers on the table, bubbles, umbrella toothpicks, funky straws......the book has so many inspiring things in it to decorate.
The bakery made the Cat to put on the cake. It was really cute!
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Patience's 1st birthday was a Messy Party!
This banner was made out of splatters of paint.
The invitations were artist palettes telling everyone to dress for a mess.
We had several different types of messy stations set up: watercolors, easel, play dough, finger paints. We then hung up lots of clotheslines at kid's reach for them to hang up their artwork.
This
Messy Cake was really fun and easy to make. I also made some bright colored cupcakes.
All the decorations were bright and fun. We had a chocolate fountain set up for the kids that was really messy. It got everywhere, but was not unexpected!
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Carmendee's 1st Very Hungry Caterpillar Party.
For the invitations, I made everyone a book entitled
My Very Hungry Carmendee. It had her life from a baby until her first birthday when she blossomed into a butterfly!
I read the kids the book while they colored some printouts of caterpillars and butterflies.
Her
smash cake was a small cake I made and then used a butterfly cookie cutter to cut it out and decorate it.
The
Very Hungry Carmendee cake I made with Oreo filling and whipped topping.
My Mom made these
caterpillar cupcakes for the guests. The decorations were all lime green and red. We made a balloon arch with all green balloons and a red balloon for the head (so it looked like a caterpillar) to put over the fireplace.
For the food, I scanned the food from the book and put cards next to all the same foods. I also made Taco Shells (cocoons) and Spinach Pasta Shells (cocoons).
Noe made a huge caterpillars face out of cardboard. The kids threw fruit beanbags through the mouth.
The favors were put in lime green and red bags with ribbon. I believe we gave out Eric Carle stickers, caterpillar soaps, gummy caterpillars, and bug picture frames. Some people also got the book to take home.
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Some tips in party preparation:
Pick a theme a few months ahead of time.
Start searching the Internet and compiling a list of activities, decorations, and food that are in your budget range.
Once you figure out what you need, you can look around for that stuff ahead of time. You'll be able to find some supplies on sale when you look ahead. Also, you'll find so many things that you never had thought of when you have your theme in your mind.
If you need to make stuff such as a Pin The Tail on the Boots....do it ahead of time, so you can worry about making food and last minute details.
Get your invites out 3 weeks ahead of time. During the holidays, I try to get them out a month ahead of time because it's the busy season.
I buy a lot of stuff on Oriental Trading online. You can also search for stuff on the Internet that you want to give away such as deals on books, certain stickers, soaps. It's really difficult with kids to get out and search around town at 10 different stores for party supplies.
If you feel stressed out, recruit friends and family. People love helping. I have a difficult time asking, but when I do it always turns out better.
The house will get messy, stains might be made.....but don't follow your guests cleaning up after them. It makes people uncomfortable!
Have fun and make it a memorable day for your lovies.
We have been shaking them up all night!
I love the smell of fresh cut trees. It's that 
