Kids Birthday Parties
Most of us have grand dreams of planning and executing a Pinterest Perfect birthday party for our kids. Beautiful decorations, delicious perfectly cooked food, and happy smiling children who pose for all the pictures you want and thank you profusely afterwards.
Reality is very different my friends. Planning a party can become a lot of work, stress and heartache, not to mention a big fat drain on your wallet. A nice party can be thrown on the lowest of budgets, or can also very quickly add up to a large bill if you get carried away (GUILTY!) How can you make sure it’s all worth it? I fancy myself a somewhat good home party planner, and I have a few tips and suggestions.
- Planning: The type of party I end up envisioning can’t be thrown together last minute. I like to start by making a pinterest board specifically for the party and picking a theme. From there you just pin away to your little heart’s content. Not everything you pin will be feasible or practical, but you wanna get a general idea of what you like and want it to look like. Another benefit of planning early is getting the chance to look around for the best deals on decorations or if you’re crafty, to DIY as much as you can to same money.
TIP: price how much DIY projects are gonna cost, sometimes it’s very worth it and other times you end up spending wayyy more on materials. - Execution: Learn from my mistakes people!!! Try to get anything that can be done ahead of time finished beforehand, and enlist any and all help you can get the day of. This is where I usually fail a little (A LOT) and end up trying to do too much the night before and morning of. Every year I get a little better, but there is still room for improvement.
- KISS: Cheesy saying but it works. Keep it simple stupid. I have to keep reminding myself that the person I wanna wow and impress is the birthday kid. There is no competition or prize if you impress your guests. You don’t have to provide a 50 option buffet, or give Academy Award style gift bags. Especially when it’s a kids party. Instead, make your priority be the things that your kid and their little friends will like. Easy yummy food, some games or a pinata, music and some cake. There are little things you can add to jazz it up but if it’s causing you a lot of stress, it’s just not worth it.
- Enjoy Yourself: Last thing, and this is the most important lesson, is remember to enjoy yourself, and make time to watch your kid enjoy their party. Play the games with them and try to savor the moment as much as you can. Try to make sure you are in some of the pictures. I usually suffer from ghost parent syndrome. I am the picture taker, rarely the subject. But for their bdays and other special occasions I wanna make more of an effort to be in the shots too.
This picture is from my kids’ joint party last weekend. It was a Mickey/Minnie theme and so much fun to plan. Some of the things I made were the Big dum-dum Mickey head and the background dot curtain. I’ll try to link the pinterest pins I used for some of the DIY stuff. But no promises, I suck at the tech stuff.