Birthday Part suggestions

[fitnessluvr]

My son is turning 5 in a couple of weeks and I REFUSE to go to Chuck-E-Cheese (or any other kid place for that matter) and spend that kind of money on a party. I would like to have it here at my house (hopefully the weather will be nice) and do some outdoor games. Any thoughts on games or other activities that wont break the bank.

I also plan to bake the cake myself so any recipies or decorating ideas would be appreciated.

Mindy

 

[EricaH]

If it's warm enough, you could do a water balloon toss. We always did that with our kids (summer birthdays) and they were a big hit. My kids were older, but we bought waterguns and used them as party favors and gave them to the kids right away and they would chase each other around for a long time. We'd make up extra water balloons and let them throw them at each other, too. It was cheap and the kids had so much fun.

Erica

 

[jodijodi]

We had great success at that age with various "treasure hunts" in the backyard. For a safari party I got a bunch of little animal themed toys at http://www.orientaltrading.com/ and hid them around the yard. We got some of the "color your own" gift bags and had the kids color them in, then we set them loose in the yard to find the animals, which they then put in their bags. And that takes care of the "goody bag" too!

We did the same thing a year later with an alien-themed party, using alien stickers and markers to have them decorate plain gift bags before looking for little alien toys in the yard. The kids loved it, even though many of them had already done it the year before.

A couple of years before that we had a "fishing" game, where an adult hid behind a big table on its side, decorated to look like a pond. The kids had fishing poles made from wooden dowels, string, and a clip on the end. After they tossed their "hook" over the table, the adult would put a little toy on the end.

For the cake, my kids often liked rather obscure characters which were hard to find decorations for, so I used to print out characters on the computer, cover them in contact paper, and staple them to small craft sticks. Then I would stick the sticks into the cake. You can make a cake for almost any theme that way. (And my kids would often play with them as puppets after the party was over.) I've attached a picture with a Mario Kart cake that we made a few years ago...I had the bakery make a "race track" and I added the characters.

Hope those ideas help...we've done lots of different birthday parties here!

 

[ldy_solana]

for scouts we do things like scavenger hunts, the ol' pin the tail on the donkey and pinatas, we also had slingshots and gave them marshmallows for the ammo. of course with the youngun's they might want to eat the marshmallows LOL but that way no body would get hurt and they could reuse the ammo while playing and just toss them at the end of the day. as jodi mention orential trading. its where we get most of are stuff for goody bags when we do scout parties.

 

[elliemom]

Jodijodi

I must confess, I just stole ALL of your ideas. My son will be 5 in December and he wants Mario Brothers party. Too hard to find that stuff. Now I have a plan and some wonderful ideas. Thanks
elliemom

 

[jodijodi]

LOL, glad I could help! I am the queen of creating parties for hard-to-find characters!

Other ideas for making decorations: use a poster-making or banner making program to make wall decorations, or print out page-size pictures on heavy paper, tape them back-to-back, and hang them from the ceiling using ribbon. Also, you can make goody bags by using plain gift bags and printing characters out on full-sheet label paper (find it at Office depot), then cut out the labels and put on the bags.

I end up using a lot of printer ink, but my kids have always been happy with the results.