Cost of birthday parties!

[bumpershoot]

When my son was little we had his whole class over for his b-day. It cost almost nothing because we did "stations". Gak station. Homemade playdough station. Bubble station and I would bet, cuz he's that kind of kid, a lego station. Oh, a writing this makes me think we did a spin art station with a salad spinner. Everyone had a great time and parents stayed to help because who wants to be the only one with twenty kids running around? With five year olds you could even have a chicken petting station. Money doesn't count. Fun does. Parties are great opportunities to start learning manners and good hosting skills. I never let friends bring presents, but they could bring things to do. Presents were for the family get together. Your daughter might have some very good ideas about what would be fun activities for her friends and that starts her thinking about other people. As to where, well, parks are fee and in four months it will be nice outside. Minimal clean up!

 

[Davaroo]

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Not yet.

 

[fowlmamma]

I Just Did This For My 4year Old. I Did A Walk In Chuckee Cheese Party . I Made Cupcakes I Already Had Everything Free, Bought 2 Centerpiece 4.50 , Pirate Eye Patches 1.50, Plastic Coins For On Top Of The Cupcakes 1.50 , I Had Tons Of Coupons For Pizzas And Tokens The Whole Party Was 59.00 And I Even Got To Feed The Adults And 13 Kids Thats Cheap We Had A Great Time !!! My Husband Gets Laid Off At Christmas Time And My Sons Bday Is 12-28 So We Have To Make It Work . Hope This Helps. Oh And No Clean Up Priceless

 

[Davaroo]

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THAT helps and is perfect!

 

[chickeypoo]

my kids are 11, 6 and 2. we have two girls with summer b-days and the youngest is in Jan. so. in the summer, we always do park parties. this last year we rented the shelter(for the 6 year old) i did a safari theme. home made pinata, a few wood shaped animals for a safari hunt(from wal mart, about 2 inches high or so) and hid them around the park area.. let them keep them as a goody. also, buy some balloons, insert some little pieces of candy, tootsie rolls(the tiny ones), sweet tarts(no suckers) blow the balloons up a little bit so they have some give, and make the kids sit on them to get the candy. nothing is more funny to watch than a bunch of little ones(or even big ones) bouncing their butts on a bunch of balloons to get some tiny candy. also made a in the tongue on the giraffe(hubby did that part) i buy my party stuff at oriental trading.com. it's cheap and it's fun. the stampers are always a big hit, erasers, and bubbles. esp for children around 5 and 6. we also did in the balloons little papers that said winner on them.. but that was a bit harder to make go over.. since some kids weren't winners. but i made them all winners anyway,

they got to all pick from the box of stuff i had bought.. ya know.. the erasers, bubbles, and color book things(they were only a few pages but the kids loved them)

the kids ranged in age from 1 (my youngest) to 11(my oldest) and they ALL had fun. just don't give big parties to have to outdo next year

one year we did a "finding nemo" party. i made a bean bag thing (drew it myself and cut holes in the foam board myself, MIL made the bean bags) another home made pinata, and more balloon popping lol.

we do it in the park and the kids can have fun on the swings and slides. i bought the cakes from wal mart. also food, can be hot dogs,(we did ours in a slow cooker) beans, chips.

i always see these people planning HUGE parties for little ones. whatever happened to family get togethers with lays chips, hot dogs, hamburgers, and potato salad? lol.

Remember, these are 5 year olds.. they aren't going to need to be impressed by ponies, and carosels(boy i can spell) they just like to have some fun, run around all crazy. get hyped up on sugary cake and kool aid, and send them home to parents so they can fall over sleeping thinking of all the fun they had that day. They are 5, and pretty easy to impress lol. at least mine is. parties dont' need to be overly done.

this is the 6 year old's b-day pinata

see, even the youngest can get into the fun

just make sure the others stand back. the oldest(when she turned 6) ended up bonked on the head by that same stick lol.

butt popping balloons

more butt popping balloons

 

[Organics North]

We have a 7th b-day party coming up this weekend! We started having them at our house because it is cheaper. We limit the number of children based on the childs age. 7 will get seven kids over.
With 20 5 year olds I SURE HOPE many many of the parents will be attending. 20 5 year olds spiked up on sugar yowza!....

Wife makes a home made pinata (By the way nice one chickeypoo!), I make invitations on the computer, wife makes home made cake I cut it into shapes and decorate it. (Hotwheels theme this year, it is going to be a cool car shape with the flames coming out of the candle tail pipes..

)

We also limit the time say from 1:30 to 4:30 at the longest. We put up lots of balloons and streamers. Have some outdoor then indoor activities., eat some snacks, open presents, do the pinata, eat some cake and about then the time is up.. It is always way less than $100. If you can not do it at home then a park or sounds good.

We do not mind the work, they are young like that such a short time.

on

 

[Tala]

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When my sister was younger we went to the city park playground/picnic area for free and ordered a few pizzas. Everyone loved it!

We had parties at home most years. Mom made homemade cake or cupcakes, a bucket of ice cream, Kool Aid burst thingys, and a bunch of kids playing in the yard. My birthday is near Easter so when it was age appropriate we did egg hunts and stuff like that. Like someone else said, kids are easy to impress. Playing with someone else's toys for a while is probably the most fun I ever had as a kid! lol

 

[Sugar Sand Farm]

Oriental trading company is your best friend when planning a party You can get tons of stuff the kids will go nuts for. We always did a party theme My son would tell me his favorite movie or toy and we would build a party around that. You can make games, pinatas cakes centered around that theme. She gave you 4 months so you have the time The party my son remembers most was
Rescuers downunder. We did a pinata of a golden eagle, games about the outback and did a scavenger hunt looking for the golden feather. I got some of the mothers to help organize the hunt we broke the kids up into 5 groups with a parent with each group to help with the clues. The kids loved it and while they looked for the clues we had time and quiet to put out the cake and icecream. We did this at a park as well I was able to give the prizes which I purchased from Oriental and the kids had a ball. They even took pieces of the pinata home. I was asked to do several of his friends parties but I didnt have the time back then it would have made a great stay at home job lol We did the party for under 60 bucks

 

[Mattemma]

We no longer do b-day parties.But in the last one we did we made dino(or dragon) eggs.You know the newspaper in wet flour over a ballon thing.Once dry and painted we filled each egg with a plush dino,puzzle,sticker,candy and covered the hole.The kids had fun cracking open the eggs.

 

[agnes_day]

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totally off the subject, but that is the cutest, chubbiest curly headed baby ive ever seen!!