You may remember that David turned 4 last month! Exactly a month ago actually. We celebrated his birthday with his classmates not quite 2 weeks ago and I wanted to share some of the easy things I did to create a fun and simple party without going too overboard (I love you “What’s Up Moms” but this party is over the top!).
There is a giant swing set showroom just a few miles from where we live. They have huge $20,000 swing sets that you can only dream of ever having in your own yard. But, you can rent out the space to host a birthday party. And with a Groupon it’s actually quite affordable. And you don’t have to clean your house. And there’s no mess to clean up afterwards. And everyone is happy. And the next day all of the kids will report to their teacher that they got to play on a giant inside playground and it was the most fun ever! So that is exactly what we did.
^^^ Having fun, despite having flown right over a swing in an attempt to “Superman” and busting his lip—yikes!
We hosted the party at 2pm. After lunch, and well before dinner. We didn’t serve any snacky food. It didn’t seem necessary and it seemed like an added expense. The kids (and their parents) weren’t coming to eat, they were coming to play. In fact, they hardly stopped long enough to eat cupcakes! I made mini versions of David’s Cherry Berry Cupcakes. They were tiny, and not a sugar bomb for the kids, there were more to go around in case of older siblings who joined (several did!), and there was less waste for the kids who just wanted to lick the frosting off of the top!
^^^ One batch of my Cherry Berry Cupcakes yielded 60 mini cupcakes!
For party favors we kept it VERY simple! It seems like there has been an increasing trend for over the top goody bags. You can easily spend $5-$15 per kid on goody bags, and most of the stuff that goes in them is fairly disposable. I am waging a war on junk coming in to my house (and desperately trying to get rid of what we do have), so we skipped them! I declared the party itself to be the “goody.” Instead, we handed out cute optical illusion cards that looked like David was holding a giant lollipop. I first saw the idea on Rage Against the Minivan’s blog, but you can find all kinds of other ideas on Pinterest. Each card contained 1 small, organic, dye free lollipop from YumEarth. Small, fun, and easy! They took me less than an hour to put together. I also liked that it was easy/affordable to make extras in case of older siblings who joined us. No one was left out. (And can I confess? The lollipops I used were leftover from Halloween!).
Here’s how I put them together:
Start by taking a million pictures of your subject. This was the most time consuming part of the process. Have your child hold a white bar/stick/position their fist so that it will look like they are holding the lollipop.
Once you select your favorites, edit them on your computer and add the text that you would like. I use Adobe Illustrator, but you could use a simpler editing program! I laid out 6 on a page, and needed about 20 cards total. I printed 4 sheets (on card stock) and then cut them out with an exacto knife.
I quickly learned that a simple slice wouldn’t accommodate the stick of the lollipop and the cards would rip. Instead, cut a small X to put the lollipops through.
Use a simple piece of tape on the back to secure the lollipop.
Ta-da! Ready to hand out to friends! I laid them on the party table when we had cupcakes. You could also pass these out at the door as guests leave, or place them in a basket for them to help themselves.
If you found these ideas to be helpful please share, and tag #frieddandelions. Have fun planning your next simple party!
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[…] year I wrote about keeping things simple for kids’ birthdays. There is such a tendency to go WAY overboard, and we just don’t need to. This year we […]