If y’all remember, 3 of my kids have August birthdays.
Sometimes that poses problems when they want to have a birthday party.
It is very difficult to throw parties, and follow through to make 3 days extra special.
We have so many traditions that happen on their actual birthday.
Those things are so important to me, because those are the things that make the kids feel special.
I want my children to be able to have parties, but not at the cost of sacrificing traditions that celebrate them.
This year, we decided that we would just host a party for a holiday or just host a fun get-together sometime during the year; in lieu of a birthday party.
Jex had a small gathering close to Halloween.
Stella decided to do something around Christmas(which next time I will try to avoid, and do a little more persuading that Valentines is a better time?)
Isaac will maybe do a little summer kick-off party?
We will still have the occasional birthday party for big birthday’s, but this compromise to host another sort of gathering has been a win-win all around.
This also makes it so parents don’t have to spend $$$ on birthday presents. Which I love. I hate asking parents to bring a present to my kids all the time.
Oh, and I hate finding a place for all those presents.
The other fun thing this did for my kids was teach them how to put together a party.
Stella really helped me put this together.
We made the plan together, decorated together, cooked together, and put all the details out together.
It was nice to do with her.
At one point she said, “this is a lot of work.”
It was good for her to realize how much effort it takes to have friends over.
Here is a peak at what we put together:
The invite
The decorations
I tried to tell her that our house was already decorated for Christmas so we wouldn’t need much. She insisted that we do a little more. So… I went through my party storage bin and found a few fun hangy things and we added them to our already decked out house.
The Food
Stella really wanted a hot chocolate bar so we decided waffles, bacon, and our favorite raspberry fluff side-dish would be the perfect items to pair with the hot chocolate.
Stella made all the waffles. I was so proud of her. It was so helpful to me.
We also made her favorite kind of syrup to go along with it; cinnamon syrup.
And the best part is seeing all the cute girls hanging out together. It was fun because we invited a variety of ages from 6th graders to 3rd graders. I love that they all got a long so great. 
Here is the breakdown on one of my families favorite recipes:
The Photo Booth
…And we can’t leave out Tessa
The games
We came up with 5 or so games.
Here is a link to each of them:
We gave prizes out to the winners. They liked picking something out of our prize basket. These were just items Stella had picked out at the $store.
The girls favorite was the relay to turn one girl into a snowman using toilet paper and snowman features cut out of construction paper.
The Crafts
We thought it would be fun for the girls to take home something they had made.
We came up with the idea of making a snow globe. They made this out of a clear solo cup and some small Christmas trinkets I had found.
We glued them on a circle of Christmas scrapbook paper and then filled the cup with fake snow. Then we but the paper on the cup and glued it down.
These were so cute, and super fun to shake.
We also thought it would be fun to make an ornament for their tree.
I hope to do a tutorial on these fun ornaments soon.
The party favor
Stella made an adorable necklace for each of the girls to take home.
You may remember seeing them at Tessa’s Belle Party.
This was Stella’s little Merry Christmas to each of her friends.
All in all it was a great evening.
It was fun to have a little party planner side-kick.
2 comments:
Loved this idea of pushing a party back to later that year! Loved how involved Stella was with it all! Thanks for the great idea!!
You have SO many creative party ideas! I would never think of this stuff!
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