Great Kid's Party Ideas

You know that I pride myself on being the Party-throwing Queen of America (ok, Upstate NY), but I have to say that I was very impressed with my cousin’s wife, Kristine, when we attended their little boy’s first birthday party this past weekend. She had a jungle-animal themed birthday party (she LOVES monkeys!) and she carried the theme (gotta love it) from the monkey invitations, to the hanging paper cut-outs of cartoon jungle animals, to the jungle animal sippy cups filled with goodies which she used in lieu of goody bags. Loved that! Age-appropriate for the birthday boy, went with the theme, and something useful for the kids and the parents! She filled the little kids cups with age-appropriate snacks and the bigger kids received candy and stickers / temporary tattoos.

She had lots of food and beverages for the adults, who entertained themselves by sitting and visiting with friends and relatives, and she had great entertainment for the kids. It was a super hot day and she had two kiddie pools out for the kids to splash in (one was actually from Fisher-Price and it was about 1-2 inches deep and was more like a round sprinkler mat – great for the littlest kids to get wet in (or my father’s dog, who was not at the party, but my father was mentioning how wonderful that would be for him!). She also had lots of colorful balls out for the bigger kids to play with, and she brought her son’s pack n’ play out and put those small plastic balls that they use in “ball crawls” for the littlest kiddos to sit in the pack ‘n play and play with – cute idea!

And another great idea for kid’s entertainment on a hot day – water balloons! She set up a water balloon game for the kids – who seemed to break them as soon as they picked them up, but they had a great time – including my oldest who was SOAKED to the bone by the time we left – I literally had to wring her shirt and skort out before I let her in the van! My littlest girlie had fun with bubbles and tried to play with the water balloons, but sadly, with all that fun stuff to do she longed to go and play in the neighbor’s yard because they had a big wooden playset and a Little Tykes playhouse. My cousin and his family had their home built last year, and they don’t have a fence up so my girlie would make a run for the neighbor’s yard and I would chase after her before she crossed into their property. My heart broke when she said, “I wanna pay house – PUHLEEZE!” (Ok so her grammar is not perfect, but her language skills are increasing rapidly – she lets you know what she wants!) It’s the “PUHLEEZE” (please) that always gets me – SO sweet, and yet always as though she’s asking for the most important thing in her life – which to her at this age, these probably are the most important things!

My favorite idea, that I was kicking myself that I didn’t do at my girl’s birthdays – Kristine had a Dr. Seuss book called “Happy Birthday to You” and she left that out with a cup full of markers and asked all of the guests to write a message in it to the birthday boy – LOVED that idea (and don’t think I won’t use it!)!