I am 32. Have 2 boys. 7 and 3. My entire life I was raised a Jehovahs witness and continued with the beliefs after i was married and had kids. Over the past several years I have strayed away from the religon and have had a difficult time celebrating holidays and birthdays. (If you don't know Jehovah's Witnesses beliefs, a big one is no birthdays and no holidays) Anyway, I had always done cutsie little things for birthdays and such and last October literally 2 days before my son turned 7, I decided to throw a birthday party for him! It was SO amazing! My hubby isn't on board so I got it all together by myself, and like I said, it was great. So my 3 year old will be turning 4 at the end of June, and I'm gonna have his party July 10th. With having more time to plan, I'm just searching for fun ideas. Going to be at my house. He only knows a few 'little' kids. It will be mostly grown ups and such. I really want to get my older son involved in the event and make it a lot of fun for him to, since birthday parties for them both are very new. He loves dinosaurs, and keys...
Good for you. Kids love birthday parties. Keep it up. The library may have
some idea books. Ask around. and don't stop.
My husband is an ex JW so I know where you are coming from. I would keep it simple and not get all crazy. Another mom after you posted a question about moms having big bday parties for their kids. Check it out. It has some good info in it. :o)
I understand your experience, as I grew up with a Witness mom (my dad's family, however, insisted on birthdays for all children and Christmases)...
My advice would be to keep things small. If your older one wants to help, may I suggest a simple papier-mache balloon pinata? It could be a "dinosaur egg" and you could include some of those spongy 'grow in water' tiny dinos as prizes, as well as stickers and whatever else you find appropriate for your group.
There's also a great activity called "Dinosaur eggs" which involves using ballons, millet/birdseed/cornmeal and scissors to make the 'eggs'. This is also something your older son could help the youngers with, I'd just practice it first. Please PM me if you want the directions for this. They might be online, and I have MaryAnn Kohl's "Preschool Art" book (your library might have it) which also has the instructions. This project may be something you could make in advance, too, for any children who come.
Have fun with this, and go lightly.
I don't know the whys of this, but in order to get your husband on board, you could make it more of a friends/community gathering.
If you go to Oriental Trading, and search for dinosaurs, they have looks of cute stuff. You could do a 'dino' hunt where you get a variety of things - eggs, stuffed animals, etc and have the kids search for the dinos. Your hubby could help leave 'dino tracks' ...
You could have a kids pool filled with white balloons to be eggs. Some of the balloons could have prizes, some of them could have a gooey whipped cream mess!
Parties don't have to be extravagant, or cost alot, just be creative. I usually do solid color forks, cups, dinner plates, and the have the cake, dessert plates and a few balloons go with the theme.
If its that you don't want the gifts and material things, then you could ask that gives be donations to go to the animal shelter, or Red Cross. My shelter just posted about a girl that did this. She ended up donating a ton of stuff to the shelter.
Good luck.
M.
I love planning birthday parties! I have two boys as well, same age difference as yours. What it was the younger one's birthday, I let the older one invite a friend to the party. That way he has somebody his own age to play with.
I agree about the great idea resources the moms shared below. I have used many of them to plan parties. Don't forget to check eBay for party stuff too. You can find some neat things.
At 4 years old the kids aren't going to have a good attention span, so doing really involved games isn't the best. The bouncer is a great idea, but games are good too if they are short and very interactive.
You might try a twist on an old favorite - pin the tail on the dinosaur. I bet you could find something like that online. Little kids love stuff like that.
Have fun!
birthdayexpress.com is a great place
In my religion each person's birthday is to be celebrated. It is the only day in a year that celebrates 'wonderful you'. I believe that everyone should get a cake and a celebration of some kind.
Oh man 4 year old parties are fun! Pinatas are always a hit, play a few games that the older one can help the little ones with- My oldest was always the one to actually break the pinata, help with the scavenger hunt or fill the water guns. Not all older brothers are the same but most like helping the younger ones, also I usually let my older one have a friend over just to help him.
When my kids were in preschool, I would just bring cupcakes to school and a present from me that they could open in front of their friends, and it was exciting for them. One time I brought cupcakes and all the things that they can decorate them with (I baked them, and then bought the icing, sprinkles, m&m, chips, marshmellow, etc. and they had a feild day). I just had my sons party this past weekend, he turned 7, and I bought little wooden treasure chests from Michaels, and had all colored paints (I held onto egg cartons and they each got one so I can fill different colors into each pocket) and then they painted and took that home as their party favor. I went to the store with him and my daughter (8) to pick our what the boys would want to paint and what the girls would want (we did this for my daughters 6th birthday and the boys got either rocket bird cages or pirate ship ones. Just depends on what they have there). Between the pizza lunch, the painting and the cupcakes, the party went two hours. The boys finished their paining quickly and went outside to play (or they played in the house) with balls and what ever toys there were around. I had also checked on the web for party games. There are a lot of sites with ideas, so check that out too.
These are 3 of my go-to websites when I am planning parties. Have a great time putting together your party :)
http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/party_ideas.html
Also, just rent a bounce house (jumpy, bouncy, whatever you want to call them) for the kids and that will entertain them well. The smaller size bounce houses are often less than $75 (maybe cheaper depending upon your particular location).
Family Fun is one of my favorite sites for cute birthday party ideas. Check out www.familyfun.go.com. I found a few cute ideas by searching 'dinosaur birthday'.
FWIW, I only do 'big parties' on the even years. It helps to keep the celebration more centered on the child and not just on the big 'to do'.
