Update, see post #5 - the results of 5 yo's first "kid" birthday party this weekend, fall-themed...

[Caneel]

In the past, DS's birthday celebrations were family affairs and I just cooked and entertained without a thought toward "kid-fun-friendliness"

Well, this Saturday is DS's first "real" party where he invited friends. We have outdoor activities planned, the weather looks very promising.

But, should the weather throw me a curve ball, anyone have ideas for indoor activities? The party is two hours long, if that matters. I don't really want to do movies or anything TV related.

I don't mind a reasonable mess in the house. I was thinking I want to have something fall-themed like painting mini-pumpkins (or somehow decorating, but not carving, pumpkins) If painting, what kind of paint?

Anyone have any fall party ideas? We are starting to get nicely colored leaves but I am not creative enough to think of a type of craft using leaves.

For lunch my idea is to do raw fruits and veggies, maybe slice/carve them in fun shapes, mini-hamburgers and homemade pizza, and cake. Over the years, I would see all sorts of cute ideas and think "I can do that" Of course now, mom-brain has totally erased all memory of such things.

Anyone have funny food ideas?

[MamieCole]

We just had DS1's 4th birthday party. It was the first real party we've had for him. I posted in the Nutrition and Good Eating forum asking for cute party food ideas and I got some great advice from some BTDT mamas: keep the food simple. Cheese cubes, sliced fruit/veggies, hummus, crackers, maybe some finger sandwiches.

Fancy, cutesy food is great, but more often than not goes uneaten because kids are too busy/excited.

For fall activities, you could do leaf rubbings w/crayons, leaf prints (with paint), or a leaf wreath. (cut out the center of a paper plate then have kids glue leaves around the perimeter.)

You can also do some melted crayon leaves. (take two sheets of wax paper, put shaved or small broken bits of red/yellow/orange/brown crayon between, cover with single layer of cloth towel, have an adult iron on hot until crayon is melted.) When it is cool, provide kids with leaf templates to trace or simply have them freehand a leaf outline. Cut it out and you have a beautiful leaf "suncatcher" to hang on a window.

Painting pumpkins is a great idea as well. For 5 year olds, if they are going to be supervised, acrylic would work, but it stains. You can use washable tempura paint if you are worried about stains.

There are a ton of things you can do with torn tissue paper. Just google kids fall art projects and you'll get tons of ideas.

[joy2grow]

We also just had DD's first kid focused b-day party. I was surprised how little the children ate. As PP mentioned they were having too much fun to be concerned with eating! They did drink a fair amount though - I had juice boxes and sm. bottles of water in a cooler w/ ice and they could help themselves.

We were fortunate to have great weather and the kids mostly played outside. For the few who chose to stay inside they just played in DD's room w/ her toys.

[verde]

5 y/o DD had her first BD party two weeks ago and it was great. We were lucky and had perfect weather. Two things in particular worked well. We did a scavenger hunt and had the kids find things outside. If you did one you could have them find different kinds of leaves, sticks, acorns or whatever was outside. Inside you could plant things to make sure they were there and then have them find stuff.

The other great thing: we got several big boxes (for free from craigslist) and stapled them together to make a "fort." We cut out a flap-door so they could crawl in and out. We had a big bucket of magic markers, crayons and glittery things and the kids decorated the outside. The kids absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED this. They continually returned to the fort to crawl in and play, which they thought was soooo cool, and to decorate. There are some really good future graffiti artists out there. Cardboard boxes -- the best!

[Caneel]

Thanks so much!

The food will be a battle because DH thinks we need a mountain of food for little kids. Oh well, no biggie because I can feed the leftovers to the friends and neighbors who are coming over after the kid portion.

I think I will have 1) pumpkin decorating 2) leaf wreaths and 3) decorate your own party hats as optional crafts. My idea is to set them up off to the side and let the kids decide whether or not they want to do them.

I suspect (hope) that they will be most interested in the yard games. Big boxes are a great idea! I had a fridge box as a kid and I played with that for months.

RESULTS -

The party was Saturday and so much fun!

We rented a bouncy house climbing thing, something DS ask for after playing on one while on vacation. It was awesome! We all loved it and the adults in the family played for hours after the party was over.

10 children were invited, 3 attended. The three that attended were his closest preschool friends so that was perfect. All I can say is thank goodness no one else RSVP-ed. Just enough were in attendence.

A side note - I was surprised that none of the parents of the other 7 bothered to call/email just to say thanks but no thanks. (I did request a reply) Maybe it is just me but I would never just ignore an invite that requests a response by a certain date. I was living in dread that I planned for 3 but the remaining 7 would show up without notice.

No one ate more than one bite of food. Seriously, so much for my carefully planned fresh fruits/veggie tray, homemade pizza, etc. (I was trying to be so careful as to not offend other parents with my food choices) Seriously, each child had about one bite of the pizza but stuffed themselves full of cake!

The only craft/activity they would sit down for was decorating party hats. I bought plain party hats and lots of stickers. They all got a kick out of that, being able to use as many stickers as they wanted.

I didn't do gift bags. Instead I told the kids they could take 2 or 3 balloons, any of the leftover stickers plus a little pumpkin (from a basket) when they left. They seemed pleased with this.

We had so much fun. DS is already talking about next year.

[Caneel]

update above