1. Drum Cake.
Er, that is a cake made to (hopefully) resemble a drum. It's a 2-layer carrot cake at his request, (I couldn't talk him into chocolate...) with vanilla buttercream frosting. I colored a bit of the frosting and piped it on to make it look like a drum, then used pretzle sticks and marshmallows (from the recent camping adventure) to make drum sticks. Martha, watch out!
2. Good game: water-balloon toss.
I used colored sidewalk chalk to draw circles on the patio, complete with point values for each. Kids stood at the line and tossed water balloons to rack up points. Turns out that the largest point value (50), about 5 feet off the line, is actually quite easy to reach. Also, we learned it's best to go in age order (youngest first) in order to preserve some of the game... :) In the end, the patio was washed off and everyone had fun.
3. Not-so-good game: musical chairs.
I hadn't thought of this: in order for you to win, everyone else has to lose. If kids, ages 2-8, lose, they generally aren't very happy about it. By the end of the game, several kids were in tears, which brings me to...
4. Another not-so-good game: wet catch.
Teams of adult-child had to toss a water balloon back and forth until it broke. Again, in order for one team to win, everyone else has to lose. Some kids figured they could just gather up any extra balloons to heave them directly at the remaining players, leaving a few in tears. We did find an effective distraction in dousing the parents. :)
5. Neighbors make great guests.
Nobody had to drive, everyone knew our house well, and when one of our guests wasn't interested in eating dinner at the party (ham & cheese sandwiches with a variety of fruit & veggie finger-foods) he could just head back across the street for his own comfort food. When another guest was tired and wanted to go home, he could, while his dad and Mr. Kenobi continued their conversation about commuting by bike.
6. Less is more.
Keeping the guest list to three families (four, including us) made it manageable and fun. Any more would have surely increased the tears at musical chairs. :)
7. Great gifts/prizes: homemade CD's.
Obi-1 is famous (with the neighbors, anyway) for DJ-ing his music for playtime, and our theme was "music." So, our guest gifts were custom-made CD's of some of his favorite music. We had three "mixes" according to three themes: Animals & Vegetables, Friends & Fun, and Quiet Times. In addition, a complete "4th Birthday Party Mix" provided a soundtrack for our festivities.
4 comments:
Sounds like a sucess to me (even with the "not-so-good games")!!!
That sounds like you had a lot of fun and learned a lot too. I learned my lesson about pinatas- they almost never break easily and are more frustrating and dangerous than fun, and there is something very disturbing about watching kids beat the crap out of Cinderella or whoever. Actually, the pull-string pinatas weren't bad and it was kind of fun. I know lots of noncompetitive games from my years as a preschool teacher and daycare provider, so feel free to pick my brain if you need ideas next time.
You are so creative!! I love that drum cake.
We did a big backyard bug party for my boys' when they turned 4 1/2. (To avoid the dreaded few days after Christmas party...) I made bug catching kits for all the kids and let them loose in the backyard. So fun!
Thanks for the offer, Mallory! I'm entering into that season where "noncompetitive" will be very good!
I love the bug-catching idea, LM! I wonder what all goes into that? We've been catching fuzzy caterpillars in our front yard lately... at least it's not spiders!
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