A Dino-mite Birthday Party!

Last weekend 18 ecstatic four and five-year-old's invaded my parents house to celebrate my son's birthday.

(Note the fact that this was happening at the grandparents home... Never have I been more grateful to have an apartment. It was the perfect excuse as to why I couldn't possibly host the party in my own home! Haha.)



Despite the obvious stress and insanity of hosting an at-home party with that many kids at that age, I was determined to have an old-fashioned at-home party. Although often quite fun, I just can't rationalize spending hundreds of dollars just for someone else to put up some generic decorations and entertain my child and his friends for a couple hours. Where's the fun in that? I don't get me decorate or plan anything!

THE DECORATIONS
As mentioned, I truly do enjoy the decorating part of parties. I don't, however, enjoy spending obscene amounts of money to make them happen. Originally I had the best of intentions to use hand-cut palm leaves and crepe paper to make a total jungle effect. Well, somewhere between the holidays, my senior year of college, work and mommyhood in general, those aspirations vanished.

Fortunately, I was still able to be thrifty and found this awesome dinosaur bulletin board set for about $10 at Oriental Trading. It worked great!

What would normally be a border around the bulletin board worked perfectly as a border around the doorway...

and the other pieces were scattered about the house as well. Only a few pieces of the entire set are pictured here.

This cute centerpiece was also found at Oriental Trading for under $4. I love how colorful it is! It made purchasing the rest of the tableware much easier since there was such a wide color pallet.

THE GAMES
Since there were so many kids, I had some activities set up in centers that they rotated between as well as some big group activities.

• Dinosaur Egg Hatch. The kids visited the "Dinosaur Hatching Grounds" (a.k.a the living room) where they found eggs (balloons) that needed to be hatched. To prepare this game yourself you'll need deflated balloons (one per child) and small plastic dinosaurs.

1. Place one plastic dinosaur inside each of the deflated balloons.
2. Blow up and knot the balloons.
3. Give them to the kids and laugh hysterically as the room is filled with their heads bobbing up and down as they try to "hatch their eggs." (Some will take a cautious approach to this... Others will do a total butt-first drop on the ground in the hopes that they will land on their balloon.)

• Dinosaur Safari. Using the dinosaur footprints that came in the bulletin board set discussed above (and pictured in the image that includes that giant blue dinosaur) we went on a "Dinosaur Safari" to try and find a nest of eggs left behind by the very rare Alphabetasaurus Rex.

1. Tape dinosaur footprints all around your party space.
2. Write each letter of the alphabet on a separate Post-It note.
3. Place one note on each of the dinosaur footprints. Try to do this in a logical way so that the kids will be able to easily find the letters in the correct order. And remember, you're going to want "Z" to end up near wherever your "dinosaur nest" is hidden.
4. Prepare your nest and eggs. For the nest, I just tore up some newsprint and placed it in a wooden bowl. For the eggs, I pulled out the Easter eggs and filled each with treats and goodies.
5. Tell the kids that they are going on a safari to find the mama Alphabetasaurus' nest, but the only way she'll let you steal her eggs is if you give her the entire alphabet in the correct order.
6. Let 'em loose! Depending on the age of the kids, gauge how much help they might need in remembering the order of the alphabet.

And then, finally, it was time for the always exciting  piñata! 

My son continuing to maul the poor T-Rex...

At first the candy was only coming out of Rex's mouth, which of course made the kids yell, "Look! It's puking up candy!" Haha.

Eventually it was bludgeoned enough that the head cracked open too.

• Dino Hats. Aren't these adorable!? And pretty darn easy too. Once the template is made for the head and tail (I cut my template out of an old piece of cardboard), all you need is some construction paper (in at least two different colors), staples/stapler and markers.

For more detailed instructions, go to Family Fun.

THE CAKE


Then it was cake time! I could have made one, but the SuperTarget that's 10 minutes from our house seemed like a much easier option. Creativity loses to convenience once again.






My little guy looking SO grown up...

Even though it wasn't as hand-crafted as I'd wanted, I've gotta admit, it went pretty darn well! E seemed pretty happy too (as you can't tell by the frosting-stained smile).