Making a Girl's Birthday Not So Girly

This sher party and I promise the boys will not care. As long as they can run around, hit that piñata and get to swim, they will be fine.

Don't worry about it! The boys probably won't even notice and if they do, they probably won't even care! My daughter had "girly" parties all the time and the boys didn't care. All they cared about was the cake, ice cream and having fun! The only thing I WOULD do, is if you have little goody bags or prizes along the way, make sure there are "boy" prizes - not to sound like a sexist here but boys do like cars, trucks, etc.!!

Good luck and have fun!!

I don't think the boys will care as long as there is fun stuff to do.

I'd make it how the girl wants it. My DD went to a party that was all construction and another that was all Avatar the Air Bender stuff. And there were boys at a party we attended where the theme was princess. Nobody cared. Just get some neutral or boy goodie bags and don't worry what they think about Hello Kitty. It's about HER, not the guests. Let a girl party be as girly as the girl wants (I'm trying to figure out how to meld T-rexes with princesses because that's what DD wants!)

Boys aren't going to care, esp. if it's a pool party. I think if you just made sure any little treat bags aren't totally girly for the boys to take home, you should be fine.

My son just attended a mermaid princess party (Ariel was there) that was obviously girly. But the boys had a great time anyway! They all decorated crowns, got their faces painted by the princess, glitter in their hair and none of them commented on the all-out pink-ness of the party. In fact, my son came home and got out his own tiara to be like the girls. They don't seem to mind at all at this age. After all, the birthday girl is a girl! Not a shock to them. And no boy I've seen has turned down cake or prizes based on their color.

That said, you have lots of things to do to not make it girly. Playing in the pool alone is awesome. The pinata is a great idea, too. And if you are having goody bags, not all hello kitty things are shunned by boys - like bubbles, notebooks, curly straws - so you wouldn't have to have separate bags for each unless you wanted to.

The boys won't care as long as they don't get girly favors. Cake, swimming, and pinata are good for them :)

Considering it is "Hello Kitty" there is really no way to make it neutral. The whole point of "Hello Kitty" is that she's so very girly!

With that said, your best bet is to make sure the games, prizes and entertainment are neutral. Any games where the boys have to exercise some physical skill might be great...like a ball toss, three-legged race, tug-of-war, water balloon fight, wheel-barrel race, an eating contest, play dough and bubble games...you get the idea.

At my son's birthday party, we hid a bunch of tiny pinata sized toys and candy inside "wide-mouthed" party balloons, and had them numbered and filling an open room. We stuffed about 100 balloons with about 2-3 small prizes. We let the kids draw numbers (equal number per kid) and then they were let loose to find as many balloons as they could within 30 seconds and after the timer went off and mad search was over - got kinda crazy with all of those balloons bouncing around- they got to sit down by themselves and pop them open to get the prizes inside....kinda a weird twist on the pinata concept. It was a hit. Be sure the kids have a bag or place to pile their balloons as they find them. If there are extra balloons,be sure the child who drew those numbers still gets the balloons even if they weren't able to do so within the search time to ensure everyone gets the same number of prizes.

Prizes they'd like: matchbox cars, Star Wars action figures, Bey Blades, spy gear/trinkets, practical joke gags and trinkets, sea monkeys, spy or adventure books, Marvel comic characters, play dough, fart putty, bubbles etc.j

The boys probably won't mind as long as they're having fun. But, instead of red and pink, you could add a few brown accents if you wanted to - maybe even a bit of jungle green.

For the boys you could have something about lions or tigers, like in their favor bags.

First of all, don't stress...the boys aren't going to make their parties less "boyish" (and yet that is always more acceptable). Second of all, your idea w/ red (and any other color you can add that matches) will help. Use the non-pink colors to accent (cups, plates, etc). Like you said, a pool party will help take the focus off "Hello Kitty".

For my daughter, we did Minnie & Mickey Mouse Mouse for her 2nd birthday so we incorporated the other characters (rather than Minnie nad Daisy and the girly spin) and multiple colors. For her 3rd birthday we did Little Einsteins w/ primary colors. For her 4th it was princess themed (pink, purple, and white). We did crowns for everyone (not tiaras), the girls made a wand and the boys did a shield, and they all decorated their own glasses. For her 5th, she wanted pirates (Jake & The Neverland pirates) so it wasn't overly girly either but we were able to incorporate her favorite characters (Izzy, Tinkerbell, and the rest). This year she wants a mermaid party so we are doing mermaid and under the sea combined...helps for the boys from her class and all her male cousins.

Don't worry about it. My son was the only boy invited to a tea party for a little girl that he is friends with. There were about 8 girls from their class and my son. He had a blast. The only thing that really matters is not giving the boys a super girly goody bag. Other than that, they will have fun at the party no matter what the theme is.

Boys wont mind as long as there's a pool and cake :)
Just make sure if you send them home with something after the party that it is more of a non gender-ed thing.

Well keep the Hello Kitty theme for your daughter, and just make some boyish goodie bags for the bys. At party city they have super cheap (.50 to $1) goodie bag things like play handcuffs, pirate stuff, you name it!

I don't think it's a big deal but you could throw in some:
-matchbox cars on the table
-since it's a pool party, maybe throw in some of those water shooters
-have some outdoor toys to play w/like bad minton, balls to kick around, some mini trains on the tables, Matchbox cars, a couple of plastic bats & balls, a couple of mitts & some tennis balls.
-put some butcher paper on the table w/some crayon & pens