Master O Turns 6 ~ The Party Prep
Things have been a little quiet on the My Pigeon Pair blog, not so much in the My Pigeon Pair Household. One little man has been turning 6. I say turning as in typical 6 year old fashion the celebration has been spread out over a number of days. There were cupcakes at school, a Birthday dinner at home and a Party with friends.
The “REAL” Birthday.
Master O came into this world on the 18th February, 2007. He tipped the scales at 4.050kgs just under 9lbs! Those of you who know me know that I am not the largest person standing at a mere 165cms tall and I never expected to have such a whopper of a baby! I will never forget the Obstetrician “sitting him up” on the warming table and saying “He looks like he is ready for school!” He was our first child, The first grandchild on both sides of the family, the first great grandchild, the first nephew. Yep he was ULTRA special.
Birthdays are BIG in my family. In my whole life there have only been two years I havent had a birthday party! One was when I was 9, and when I was 30 (I had just had Little Miss A) and so the traditions began.
On the morning of your Birthday you awake to find your presents! Yep just like Christmas! No opening presents until IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY! That was extra hard this year as the parcels began arriving from family during the week! He peeked and shook but he knew not to ask if he could open them!
You get to take a cake to school. Back in my day it was a whole cake and that poor teacher would spen and hour slicing, dishing it out and cleaning it up. Now it’s cupcakes! I have also seen parents bring in donuts or ice creams! Anything to celebrate the day with your classmates! Master O wanted “Shark Cakes” so a quick google search and this is what we came up with. I melted the chocolate and the poured it out onto a baking tray covered in baking paper to make an even layer. When it was semi firm, my husband carved out some shark fins! Pop them on top of some blue icing and you have sharks in the water! Master O was wrapped with having his Birthday on a school day as he got the “special Birthday treatment” form his teacher and got to sit on her chair as he told the class all about his presents.
THE PARTY PREP
Choosing a “Theme”
For us the party always starts with a theme. We live less than 50metres from a lake. Master O and his Daddy spend many an hour catching fish and guppies, and yabbies and tadpoles there. Fishing is something he has really taken a liking too and a special time to share with his Dad. So a “Fishing Party” was an easy choice! The original idea was to take a group of his friends fishing on the lake. Turns out that is illegal!!! One day when he is older we would love to have a kayakking party!
He decided this “MONTHS” ago as usually happens this family! Over the Christmas holidays we spent many hours at the beach and it suddenly became a “Fishing/Sailboat” Party. Not a problem. I start the invitations, print them out and he adds that maybe it could be a “Fishing/Sailboat/Shark” Party?? He does LOVE the water and he is an aquarius so a Fishing Sailboat Shark Party it is.
So I start gathering supplies, maddly pinning images and creating a zillion checklists for everything PARTY. Oh I have so many tips here and that is probably a whole other post but briefly.
SHOP YOUR HOME: Because the party is themed around his interests we actually had a lot of things around the house we could use. He has a sailboat bookshelf in his room, and some little “Fish” display crates. His Aunty had also given him a gorgeous hand carved wood fish from her time in the Solomon Islands. We had some brown placemats and lots of glass jars that we filled with sand from the sand pit!
COLOUR PALLETE: We went for a Light Blue, Brown. Beige colour theme. This was an easy choice as it was the colours of the lake/ocean.
In the weeks before the party I spotted some cute cupcake wrappers in an aqua blue stripe for $2 so I grabbed them. They were not the perfect blue but they were a bargain so it pays to be a little flexible with your colour palette!
Location and Time
Before I get started on the invites we decide the details. We have had every Birthday Party at home. I like to have clean toilets, set the party up “my way” the night before and know my kids are playing in a safe environment. It is also the cheapest place to have a party! Time, well this is a hard one! February is notoriously bad for weather in our parts, varying between stinking hot and raining. The last two years we have had a 3-5pm party, but it is just so hot. So this year we tried one hour later 4-6pm. It is probably the latest we could go for this age group but that first hour it was still pretty hot outside!
Invitations
EVERY birthday party in our house in the last three years has had an Anders Ruff Invitation. This year it just wasnt meant to be. They would have happily created a custom invite for us (afterall who is going to stock fishing/sialboat/shark invites!) but the budget didn’t allow for it. So I thought I would give it a try myself!
Take a bit of chevron (hey it looks like waves!) some fishing clipart, a picture of a sailboat and some cute free fonts and there you have it. I created it in Microsoft Word and simply printed three per page on white card stock.
Printables
So pleased with my new found ability to make things myself I made some other party printables!
Some little swing tags for the Party Favour Bags.
and a topper for the container of Putty in the Party Favour bags.
The toppers I simply printed onto A4 sheets of self adhesive paper and then cut to size and stuck onto the putty container!
Have you guessed yet that I love things that rhyme?
Guest List
Before printing invitations and buying any other party items we sort out the guest list. Doing this first means I can then not waste money “over buying” items and can tailor party bags to individual kids. My biggest tip here is LESS IS MORE. Remember when your children are little that for each child you invite there is also an adult, possibly two and maybe even some younger siblings too, add in your own child, their siblings and a few other family members and a party of 6 becomes a party for 20! Growing up we had the rule that you could invite as many people as the age you are turning. So when you are turning 6 you can invite 6 friends. All of his friends were from school, a mix of old and new friends.
and yep from 6 friends we ended up with a party of 20 people!
Entertainment
This needs to be sorted well in advance, especially if you need to “book” any entertainment. We do parties “Old School” in our house. No jumping castles, face painting, magician, balloon person. The entertainment…..ME! Well and the kids just want to play in the yard! I organise a few themed games and the rest of the time they literally just run wild! Mostly this is just because it is what I know, and so far the kids have never asked for these things. Also its the cost that I struggle with as I would rather spend the money on a great present that they will have for years to come. DOn’t get me wrong I would love to one day go all out and do something AMAZING but I will wait until they are old enough to really appreciate it. If you are not the kind of person who can entertain kids I would recommend getting some kind of entertainment. I am a teacher of this age group and I must admit I think my ability to get their attention, run a game and be fair with prizes is fleeting.
I make a list of “themed games” and gather up all the supplies and put them in a basket. The best decision this year was to have “medals” as prizes! No buying junky toys and lollies and wrapping them! Each child got a simple plastic medal (available at Woolworths in a pack of ten)
This year we had;
“Sink The Ship” – Children throw a water bomb at a ship on a tin can to try and push the tin over and “Sink The Ship”
“Fishing Trip” – Treasure hunt style. The children were in teams and have to find hidden fish in the yard! each time they find a fish they have to run back and put it in their teams bucket. The team with the most fish wins! I also had a special one of a kind “Golden Fish” and the team who found that fish also won a prize.
“Fish Hunter” – We set up the wading pool and children each had one minute to catch as many fish as they could and put them in their bucket.
“Create a Fish” – I had this all sorted and forgot to put it out! I had some cardboard fish templates and some items to decorate them with.
Food
Normally I just go for themed “party” food. But this year with the later time frame I provided both “Party” food and then a “Bucket O Fish” aka fish, calamari and chips (chicken nuggets for those who don’t like fish) In saying that the kids hardly ate! Their was too much excitement to be had. When planning the food I also try to plan ahead what containers I will use for each. The more disposable the better! There is a lot of clean up after a party! A few years ago I stocked up on some large plain white plates that have always come in handy. I searched high and low for some water “pop tops” for the kids to no avail. They ran around like crazy, it was hot and I really needed a better water system! I think the best option would have been “named” adult size water bottles. Plastic cups are just messy and we went through about 40 and yet when someone needed a drink there were no cups to be found!
I also organised some simple cheese/antipasto plates and some pastries for the adults with cold drinks.
Set up a serve yourself coffee/tea station for the parents. This is another thing I have learnt form previous parties. When you are trying to take coffee orders and make coffee for parents AND run a party things get crazy! Allowing parents to do it themselves takes the pressure off the host, people get a coffee made “their” way and it is a great to encourage “new” parents to mingle and chat.
The last things to “prepare” for a party are the “Party Favour” bags and of course THE CAKE! Both of these deserve a post of their own! So stay tuned…..
Do you get a little crazy about kids birthday parties?