I'm out of ideas! Can some of you please throw out some suggestions of what to do for my son's 4th birthday? I will not do a moonwalk!
For his 1st birthday, we had it at a park. His 2nd birthday was at a place where they got pony rides, train rides, small petting zoo, clown and games (I really liked that one). For his 3rd birthday we took a 9 day vacation (our family vacation for the year) to San Antonio and went to Seaworld, Six Flags...etc. His birthday was just spent with the 3 of us--I really enjoyed it but I know family would like to see him and celebrate and I'm sure he would love that too.
This year he wants a dinosaur party but isn't stuck on that. I have looked into a place that does them but I really don't think he is old enough to enjoy what they offer. Ideas would be greatly appreciated....please!
My husband has a large family so everything has to be planned for at least 30 guests. We are currently on a pretty tight budget. We recently bought our first home and I'm disabled so our house isn't at the point where I feel comfortable allowing a lot of people over. We still have tons of unpacked boxes and no pictures hung up or anything.
Um, how about a nice party at home with dinosaur themed plates and napkins. He's young enough that something simple where he gets to see family and friends would be great. Get some small plastic dinosaur skeletons and bury them in loose dirt. Then the kids can go fossil hunting.
If you don't scale it back now, you'll have to rent an entire cruise ship for his tenth just to keep topping the year before. ;)
There is no way to throw a party for 30-40 people on a small budget. Unless you are going to throw an old school birthday party which consists of a cake and balloons. I know I loved it when I was four!
For my daughters 4th birthday we had the party at Burger King. This particular location had a huge in door play area and we scheduled the party during what the staff considered to be a "down time". They provide food, obviously, the goodie bag, cake and the play area was all the entertainment that was needed. You could look into something like that, it may be a little more budget friendly, room for every one you want to invite, and fun.
Good Luck
We usually rent out our neighborhood clubhouse. It's $75 and air conditioned & has a full kitchen and it's at the park. We have sandwiches & chips & dips & drinks for lunch for everyone (usually 40 people). Somehow we still end up spending $350 on decorations, gift bags, food/drinks, cake, etc! Parties are expensive! I'm sure if I tried harder we could do it there on much less $$.
You can still do the dinosaur party. Have chicken wings and call the 'pterodactyl wings". You can stage a dinosaur dig in your backyard. Get him little dinosaurs and have them around the house as decorations. Make your own cake and put dino footprints on it. you can do a budget party for cheap and still have lots of fun and make it really cute. The kids can pretend to be archeologists... or they can be cavemen, or dress up like dinosaurs here:
http://www.partyfix4kids.co.nz/dinosaur-party.wse
http://www.multiplydelicious.com/thekids/2010/02/dinosaur...
scroll through for more dino party pics/ideas:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&cp=13&gs_id=11...
the dino dig idea:
http://satorismiles.com/2009/08/09/dinosaur-party-was-a-hit/
This leggo party idea would be supper cute too, click on the pic to see the full ideas:
http://www.everafterentertainment.com/p/party-tips.html
We have a extended family and friends who come a distance for birthdays, plus local friends, and I don't want hoardes of people climbing all over our little house, either. We're having this year's b-day party at the "Little Gym" where my son takes a tumbling class. We've done that for the last two years, also and it's worth every penny. It's hosted by two or three instructors (depending on the size of the group), there's an hour of theme-based class (you pick the theme) and half an hour in another room for cake and presents. Our location allows non-members to have parties there too (for an extra $25, I think). After the festivities "off-campus", family members and out-of-town guests come back to our house for pizza and salad. It's still a zoo, but it's maybe 15 adults/kids instead of 40 adults/kids.
We've also attended a couple of birthdays this summer that were held at a bouncy-house place - both were great. The kids wore themselves out jumping and the adults could stay a bit removed but still within sight of the kids in the party room.
