One of the best memories of childhood birthday was the most simple - my mom made and had everyone help - make homemade ice cream in a crank type freezer, of course a cake (that she made and decorated cheaply). We had gunny sack races, run to the other end with a potato between your knees and then hand off to the other side of the relay team with them returning back to the original line with the tater between their knees. We had a hoop throw over a jar with candy in it
whoever got the most "ringers" won the jar but of course shared it with everyone! We also had potato under the neck race - everyone lined up into two lines and had to pass the potato off to the next one under the neck. We had an egg toss. A run and sit on the balloon and run back relay style. It was outdoors. She called it an Old Fashioned Birthday Party - my friends still remember it. You could put all electronic games barred from being played at party. Good Luck! And we're proud of you Soldier - thank you for protecting our Miss America!
Kim Mc
Emerald City Gym/Bump City is located in overland Park by the Oakpark mall. You can visit their website. Had a party there last year for my 8 year old daughter. Its approximately $10 per child. Both boys and girls have their partys there. Lots of fun to be had.
An overnight is a great idea, especially with no furniture, a movie night, sleeping bags, a few boys, no sleep, but lots of fun! The park idea is great, but if you want the shelter you'd better check to see if they reserve it for a fee, you might find it reserved. We just had my granddaughter's at a park close to the playground, but she also rented one of those jump houses ($130) once it was up the kids didn't come out! Of course the water party is fun, but the crazy weather is hard to predict, but you can combine this with a messy party, pie fights (whipped cream in pie plates), slip n slides, water balloons. My son made silly putty at school in chemistry, he guards it with his life (He's 16)he's so proud it, anyway you can go to youtube and find the recipe for silly putty, it's not expensive, but you can get the empty easter eggs right now to put the putty in, you would have the coolest take home gift ever! Let us know how it goes!
The army theme seems to be very popular these days with that age group and the park sounds like a wonderful place to have it! The boys will love being able to run wild! As far as food - you can't go wrong serving pizza. And maybe you could have cheese balls, too, and call them cannon balls. My son is the same age and every year we do a cookie cake. You can get them cheap at Walmart or Sam's club has a huge double layer one that is my son's favorite and all of the kids, too. It is less than $15. Kids, also, love cupcakes which you could make yourself & decorate with a plastic army man on top of each. Or maybe just serve those bomb popsicles which come in the red, white, & blue colors. For games, you could paint the kids faces in camo colors, have a water balloon (grenade) toss, use water guns to shoot plastic army men until they fall over, play pop the grenade where the kids have to sit on balloons until they pop, make & fly paper airplanes or even buy the styrofoam kind and see who can fly theirs the farthest distance or fly thru a target like hoola hoops. You could, also, have some kind of obstacle course game using the equipment at the park. Party favors could be things from the dollar store - whistles, bandanas, plastic army men, paratrooper parachute men, glow sticks, and even a roll of lifesavers - since soldiers save lives! It sounds like a very fun and cool party theme to do. Good luck and thank you for serving our country! On another note, my son has been to several parties at Jaegers Laser Tag by Worlds of Fun. Wan't sure where you were located. My son is the same age, the boys just love it, and it was very afforadable - within your price range. And was VERY cool! That would, also, go with your army theme. If that location isn't near you, you could see if there is something similar in your area.
I have the perfect cake idea for you. I make custom cupcakes that would really make your party special and unique. www.crumbscustomcupcakes.com So fun!!
Best of luck!
Kristina
First may I say WOW. You are obviously an amazing woman. I am fortunate enough to have two healthy teenagers and am happy to share some things I learned along the way. As far as birthday parties, it is sad to see the backyard parties pushed aside by the expensive, high tech parties.Some of my most fond memories are hosting backyard parties for my kids. And they were their favorites as well.The added bonus is that you get to be hands on in the party, not paying someone else to do it.Becuase of your backround I would suggest having a scavenger hunt with a "survivor" theme. The Survivor part can be a tasting event while they are blind folded. Let them feel and taste things that you call worms for example that are real food. Minimal expense and way fun for boys. Feel free to e-mail me if you want any further instructions but I think your boys are the perfect age and would LOVE it. Good luck and thank you for your service from a True American!
I don't know where you live, but if you're in the KCMO metro area, Lee's Summit Park's and Rec has an indoor water park called Legacy Park, and you can have up to 20 kids for the same price. I think it's about $150. It's more expensive if you have them bring the cake and punch. It's cheaper to do it yourself.. You could do a cake and small party favors, you could stay within your budget. And, kids love to swim, so your son will think it's cool.
I think there are similar indoor water parks all over, so if you have that much to spend, it shouldn't be a problem.
I know that Oriental Trading is a great place to buy party favors and things for cheap and they have sales alot of time too. I used them all the time when I was teaching preschool and we had our holiday parties. Most of everything comes in packs of twelve. If you go to Orientaltrading.com and search for party themes or whatever you need, it will show everything! They even sell pinatas! Good Luck and I am sure that he will enjoy anything that you do for him and his friends!
We just had a fishing party at the Scott base lake. Fishing is allowed at most parks with water if you don't have access there.
The kids had a great time. We bought cheap hot dogs and cut them up for bait and the kids brought their own fishing poles. For favors we had bottles of bubbles and little kites I found at Target for 1.98 each.
We roasted turkey hot dogs and ate raw veggies with ranch. I made a cake and I don't think the kids really cared if it was fancy as long as it tasted good. All the kids left very happy. We had 15 attending and I heard two of them say that they wanted to have their party like my son's.
It was very cheap. I bet we didn't spend more than 75 dollars including food and drinks (I made a jug of lemonade), and stuff kids took home.
Good luck! And welcome back!
Linda C.
Rather then a cake, you could bake cupcakes the night before and let each child decorate it themselves, especially if you are going to be outside- less mess in your house! That cuts down on the cost of a professional cake and it would be a lot of fun. Also, for goodie bags, you can talk to Hy-Vee and see if they will sell you their re-useable bags at cost (like 29 cents) and the kids can decorate that, then you can send them all on a scavenger hunt and get little toys at the Dollar Store or even the left over easter toys at Wal-Mart. Or, have them "hunt" for buried treasure, like X marks the spot. Fill little snack bags with crayons or a toy car and let them dig it up, what boy doesn't like playing in the dirt? It doesn't have to be expensive to be memorable!
I have done a lot of big parties on 100.00. I usually make my own pinata. Blow up a balloon, make a flour water paste, and strips of newspaper, Put the paste on the paper and put on the balloon, leave a spot open at the top so you have a hole to put the candy in, Make 2 holes on the sides but not too close to the top or it will rip through and run a long rope through it. You have to think ahead because this takes a few weeks to dry and is great for big parties, we have had over 20 kids and took them 2-3 times through the line to break open one of these homeade pinatas but they are a real hit because it is a challenge to break through, we also use plastic baseball bats and it just takes some time for the glue to break loose but once the paste starts breaking up then the thing will break open. I love this because it takes about 1/2 hour and is a good time filler. We did an army one and just spray painted it cammo colors. Other themes, we just spray painted it white or black and cut out wrapping paper to match the party theme.
Since you are planning it at a park, a scavenger hunt might be fun. Have some relay games and at a park they will have fun on the playground so you won't have to come up with a lot to entertain. As far as food goes, Depends on what time of day you have it. If you have party from 12-2 then you need to have lunch type foods, hotdogs and chips or if you have some adults have some hamburgers as well. 1-3 or 2-4 then you can have snack type foods like chips and dip. As for goody bags, I don't put as much candy in the pinata and put even amounts of nice candy like the mini candy bars in each bag for them to take home and maybe 1 prize type toy, they are more excited about the candy than the toys anyway and candy is a lot cheaper and those toys aren't played with again once they leave the party. The snack size or sandwich size ziplock bags are plenty and is just a little token to thank the kids for coming. Stick with smaller bags and you don't have to put so much in them, but if you use bigger bags and just have a few items in them then it looks empty and you feel like you have to buy more stuff to fill it. For the pinata, you want candy that doesn't fall apart when it gets hit so candy like starburst and taffy are good for that. I don't usually buy bubble gum but it would work too. I just don't like kids chewing gum all through my house.
If it's warm enough water balloons and squirt guns are fun. We have a small pool and fill it with water and put it in the middle of the yard, then when the kids need to refill their water guns they have to go to no mans land to get it so they are set targets when they need to get water but this helps a lot so you don't waste a lot of water trying to fill them with a water hose all the time. When the pool is empty then that is it and it's time to play other games to dry off. We usually have in the invitations for each kid to bring a water gun and towel as they prefer to bring those big ones and we would have extra little dollar store type ones for kids that forgot to bring one but most of them will bring those big water soakers that shoot a distance.
If you have home parties, We played Disney Trivia and if you have like 15 kids just make up your own version or split them up in teams. They mainly enjoy answering the questions anyway. I just make them a 2 hour time limit and have a lot of games and stuff planned. They don't tend to run around your house and dig out all the toys in your kids bedrooms if you have a plan and keep them all involved and very busy. Another activity that my niece had at her party was a lot of art supplies set on the table and they each made a special card for the birthday child, this took up some time too and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. They also made special cards to take home too. Twister is also a fun party game.
Limit your time to 2 hours, that is plenty long enough and some will linger longer but you won't feel like you have to entertain them as 2 hours is a long time to keep them busy. We have also had the kid party first and then family party afterwards because we can't fit everyone at once but our family parties are always long as we talk and visit, play games like cranium and so we really don't have a party time set when we have family parties, its like an all day family reunion and usually we have potluck for those but they are more relaxing than the kid parties and don't feel like I have to entertain too much because everyone can help themselves and chill out because the kids already had their fun and are usually worn out and prefer playing video games or watching a movie with their cousins or other games.
As for cake, have cupcakes and put army men on them. I have found that kids will eat cupcakes but usually throw cake away and most like white over chocolate, but with cupcakes you can make a variety. Make your sons favorite and make something else. I usually make 2 types and they will eat them right up. Sometimes I will buy a small cake with the party theme and make a batch of cupcakes for the kids and the adults will usually eat the cake but the kids will prefer the cupcakes over cake. For other themes I have taken stickers and put them on toothpicks and stuck in the cupcakes. I just hate when I see kids throw the cake in the trash that cost 30.00 when I could have made a ton of cupcakes for less than 5.00 and they will eat them and usually most of the kids will eat 3 or 4 of them if you let them. They also prefer whipped icing over butter creme.
Have a great time and just be creative.
Pick a theme and go to http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/. I've planned a pirate party and an army party using ideas from this site. It's great! Good luck.
Christy,
I wish I had some good ideas like the others - though the backyard ideas sound the best to me. (My son is 19 months old and I, too, will be trying to avoid the "lame" party in a few years.) I just wanted to say "welcome home" and "thank you" for your service to our country.
Have you thought of the pinata, you can buy them an then fill with candy an maybe find something inexpensive at walmart or another discount store like dollar general. For prizes I would like at dollar general for them as they usually have some nice stuff. For your cake go to either costco or sams club much cheaper than a bakery. WE normally buy all birthday cakes from one or the other since you get more for your money from them.
Hi christy, totally understand about the budget thing. I think a park is a great place to do it and you could just make it around a time that would be after lunch but before dinner and just have cake and ice cream. I don't do any treat bags for my kids parties because it ends up being a bunch of little stuff that they play with for about a day and then it goes in the trash and I have a hard time spending money on things like that. So, I get these cookies made in the theme of the party and have the invited kids names on them. I put them in a little clear gift bag and that is what they leave with. NO unwanted cheap toys laying around. Have some balloons and the park will entertain them. Good luck, hope this helped.
Pizza, burgers or hot dogs. Soda and/or punch/kool-aid. Solid color napkins and plates. Cake of course. And for the activities, just buy or bring a volleyball/badminton set, horse shoes, or baseball (maybe a big rubber ball for dodge ball) and let them do their thing. You could set up the theme with Cops and robbers, or Pirates and the good guys, or whatever and have the kids divide into teams... We did Autobots vs Decepticons at my son's party). If it's warm enough squirt guns or water balloons are always a hit (just make sure they know to bring towels and a change of clothes). Candy makes the best party favors. You can fill a waterbottle or cup with candy and maybe some small trinkets, or maybe a $1 frisbee with candy and wrapped with clear plastic???...They'll love it and it's cheap. Have fun.
I am the mom of a 10 yr. old son and a 1 yr. old baby. I understand your predicament.:)If there is a grill, you could recruit someone to help you grill hot dogs , have some chips and pop...If you have the money and if there are trees at the park, you may want to have a pinata (candy would be cost here)..I went to a party once and the mom bought toys at the dollar store to the winners of races and games. We had foot races and did "potato sack" races using garbage bags. We had a great time. If you have balls or frisbees, you should round those up for the kids to play with.If you or someone you know is a member at Sam's Club, you can get a cake there for a good price..
Hope some of this helps...
P.S. Thanks for your service to our country.