Party Follow Up

J.'s party was a lot of fun but it was truly and totally exhausting. As with so many other things, an eco-friendly and affordable party can be done but it is quite expensive in terms of creativity and energy.

1. Having party at home: saves rental expenses but then I had to spend the entire day before cleaning my house. All rooms. Because we were having 20 kids there so we had to use several rooms to hold activities, plus I knew kids would want to explore the girls' bedroom and toyroom. Plus 2 bathrooms and the kitchen. So yeah, it took an entire day because I had to take care of and play with my kids at the same time, of course. And we had two parties, so I had to do this twice after the first party trashed my house.

This is 20 kids plus me and 3 mommy helpers all in one room! 

2. Making my own cake and icing: saves money but takes time. I did cupcakes on Friday so we could use napkins and no forks with 20 kids. I made Paleontology cupcakes: chocolate cupcakes with ground oreo cookies on top (to look like dirt) and a worm coming out of the top, with a sterilized plastic dinosaur jammed inside it after it was cooked. The kids excavated their dinosaurs while eating their cupcakes. Crumbs ensued.

I made a volcano cake for Sunday so we could feed the 50 people at the party. It took 3 cake mixes and 3 batches of icing. I used marble mix so it looked like sedimentary layers when I cut it. It was good because I put tons of ground oreo cookies all over it to make more realistic dirt. At least one person besides myself appreciated that.  I tried to melt jolly ranchers to look like shiny lava but it looked more like broken beer bottles so I made a batch of red lava icing and took forever sculpting that realistically. I made a hole in the volcano part and drove to 5 (!) different places trying to buy dry ice so the volcano would look like it was smoking. Nowhere to buy dry ice. we put the tall candles in there instead. I was very disappointed that it didn't work out but my friends scolded me for hating on my cake, so I tried to own it.

See the broken beer bottles?

3. Limiting disposable dishes and cutlery: cheaper but obviously a ton of dishes later. This wasn't so bad with the first party where I did juice boxes and only finger foods and cupcakes. The second party was a potluck so there was tons of food and dishes.  The next morning my kitchen was mostly cleaned up and many dishes were done. I found out that my superheroes- Julie, Heather Jackson, Heather Jauquet, and Jeremiah- had done all this for me. I don't know what I would do without them. They really are family to me because they do this stuff for me all the time and I can never repay them for all that they do. So I finally stopped worrying about it and just accepted it, even though I can't imagine what I have done to deserve them. That's how I know they're my family.

4. Doing all our own activities: oh my god, so much work!  But it's what J. wanted and I really did enjoy planning it. We bought geodes online, enough for each kid at each party. We labelled jars for each kids' rock collection and painted the jar top so it wasn't so obviously just a reused baby food jar! (problem: they were glass and 3 broke at the first party, 1 broke at the second party. I had backups to give the kids and luckily no one was hurt.)  Finally, we bought enough rock candy online for everyone at each party since we failed at trying to make our own. Add all that to the dinosaur excavated from the cupcake, and you have your goody bag, minus the bag.

We had the same activities at each party:
1. kids got their personalized rock collection jar and hunted for shiny gems/rocks in the sandbox. We already had these rocks from a present to the kids last year from their Grandpa. They kept their favorites and we shared the rest. I am thrilled to have 100 or so less shiny rocks to clean up from around the house!

C.'s rock collection!

2. we played a game about meteors so that each kid could get their geode out of our Earth Ball. Then Jeremiah broke them all with a hammer, which was loud and took a long time and was shooting rock fragments and sparks all over the kids. Luckily, no one was hurt.

The dang internet said that 5 year old kids could do this themselves. Not even!

3. we used natural objects (shells, feathers, etc.) to make fossil imprints in playdoh. I had books to read about all this but I ended up just flashing a few pics from the books and then letting them at it.

J.'s good friends were into it but some of our 1st party guests who are not her closest friends would rather try to play our Wii with no adults around. That happens when you invite the entire preschool class.

4. we had bins of water and old toothbrushes with some cool rock samples under a book lamp. This was our laboratory. The kids gave their rocks a bath. This was fun and my girls could have done it (well, they did do it) for hours.

We borrowed Grandpa's awesome rock collection for this. The kids never even knew how cool these rocks are.

5. we had out the lava lamp to show lava flow and the plasma lamp so kids could make electrical currents. Some kids loved these, some kids didn't get it. Mine liked it, so that was important to me.

These guys liked the plasma lamp too. Who wouldn't?

6. we made a Crystal Cave complex out of 2 play tents and a play tunnel. We covered it with blankets so it would be dark and filled it with shiny rocks and crystals, hanging from the ceiling and sitting on different levels along the sides of the tents. The kids got flashlights and a headlamp so they could take turns crawling through the caves. This was their favorite part but eventually they would start mining the caves, bringing out the prettiest rocks to see in the laboratory. I was fine with that, but it did mean it had to be rebuilt for the second party.

My friend Ayris stayed and helped with all those kids. The headlamp was perfect for spelunking!

It was a relatively inexpensive, eco-friendly birthday party that made my daughter happy. But it was a lot of work. And done twice. So we started a new family tradition: you get a super birthday party like this one every 5 years. In between, you get small ones where you and your friends have to make your own fun. Remind me of this next year!

Happy 5th Birthday!