Turnng 8

Last Thursday my older one turned 8. EIGHT! I can’t believe it!

There are a couple of birthday traditions we have in our home. First, the night before the birthday, I do a little decorating.   I hang up a birthday banner above the living room window and hang photos from all past birthdays including birth.

I couldn’t find the banner I usually hang, but had the one I made a while back for The Willy Wonka concession table.

For my girls, birthdays are always a 3 part celebration. Family dinner, school and the official party.

For the family dinner, they get to choose their meal. This year it was Sticky Chicken Wings (I have to post this recipe soon – it’s so good!), pasta alfredo, and I insist on a vegetable so it was roasted zucchini. She almost didn’t want a cake up until the last minute and then decided on Red Velvet. The recipe I used called for 1/3 cup of red food coloring! I just couldn’t bring myself to use that much so the cake turned out to be more of a Maroon Velvet Cake.

The decorating is the part I love but my daughter wanted to do it this year.

Fine. Take all the fun out of it for me.

The next day we did a small celebration at school. This time the request was rice krispie treats.

The next day was the actual party. I told you – THREE parts!!

This year we did it outside our home at a gymnastics place in Yonkers called Gym Cats. They do the activity and we have to bring everything else – plates, food, cake, etc.

The kids had a great time in the gym – flying, trampoline, bounce house, etc.

Back to the party room for pizza and cake.

I got gypped this year!! I love party planning as far as the decorations, food, cake and goody bags go.

No decorations, simple food – pizza, and my daughter AGAIN wanted more rice krispie treats!!  I couldn’t take it so I made the rice krispies in a cake form. Had to be a little creative!

Since she didn’t have a theme this year, it was a little hard to come up with goody bag ideas. So, I let go of my normal control tendencies and let my daughter choose what she wanted. Items included things like an ice pop lip gloss necklace from Justice, gum, a doughnut eraser, nail polish, a fake mustache (there’s a whole back story to this one) and a lollipop.

Even though I let her control the contents, I still had to be in charge of the packaging. I kept the packaging simple but still wanted to personalize it a bit. Since her favorite color is turquoise now, I used turquoise gift bags and purple ribbon and printed out round stickers with her face on it.

I used the same stickers to personalize the lollipops – just to make them a little more special.

That’s it! Done until my little one turns 6 in April. I really don’t feel like my creative party planning urges were satisfied this time around!

What do you do for your kids’ birthdays? I have to say, I feel like a lot of these places are a rip off for what you get. I definitely feel like there’s room for improvement in the Kids Party market. What do you think?