I knew this would happen. That I would blink and these four birthdays would already have passed. If you read my last article on building memories with birthday celebrations, you would have seen our 2nd birthday theme, “Time Flies” with planes. I knew this would happen. I took another trip down memory lane today reminiscing about these last 4 years of birthday celebrations. Each one celebrated that year and my son’s life in a special way. Each one was very memorable and enjoyable. I’m grateful for each birthday celebration that allowed us to celebrate all of our grows and glows for that year with loved ones.
So cheers to another 4 birthday celebrations! May we continue to be present in each one and enjoy these moments of our children’s lives.
5th Birthday Party Theme: Space with Buzz Lightyear (at a local State Museum)
I have to admit that this was one of my favorite birthday parties we did because who doesn’t love The Toy Story? My son dressed up as Buzz Lightyear of course, and we enjoyed a scavenger hunt around the museum, the kid play area of the museum, and the planetarium. It was an action packed day with friends and family at the museum, and there are so many cute ways of displaying the food with this theme! (I kind of got carried away with the food displays!) You are probably wondering how I hauled all of this into the museum. They had rolling carts that they brought out to our car out front, and we were able to wheel it all in. It was tricky though making sure we had everything, but I kept collecting it in a large box that fit in the back of our SUV. Everything went smoothly, and this theme was so much fun!
6th Birthday Party Theme: Minions (at home during the beginning of the pandemic)
This birthday was a tough one, since this is when everything changed shortly afterwards. My son didn’t get to finish his kindergarten year, but with this tough year came the opportunity for me to teach him how to both read and write even if I was doing it while teaching my students online at the same time. It was definitely challenging. His birthday came right as things were shutting down around us. Thank God for the Minions! I’m grateful we were able to still meet together before everything changed so quickly.
So you may be wondering what I enjoyed the most about planning this birthday? This is when I started having fun making my own balloon garlands! This would have never started if there wasn’t a helium shortage, but I’m glad I started since balloon garlands make every celebration even more fun. I also have to admit that I loved making these cute little minion bananas. They are so cute!
This was also the year that my son did his first drawing decoration for one of his parties, and he wanted to do it all on his own without me even asking.
Let your kids help in planning their party. They will enjoy spending time with you! We opened up our garage, and spent more of our time outside.
As you can see, we had to improvise to allow people outside. We were supposed to have the party at Hershey Chocolate World this year, but they closed down. It was still fun though despite the quick change!
7th Birthday Party Theme: Paleontologist/Fossils/Science (at a local Science Center)
After everything that year with the closing of schools and being isolated, I wanted to make this next birthday really meaningful. It was my most favorite birthday party celebration we had since my son absolutely loves science, and the paleontologist fossil digging learning experience was so meaningful! The kids were digging for fossils, putting together a large wooden dinosaur, doing watercolor painting with dinosaur pictures, and we brought in a hydrophobic sand activity from Steve Spangler. By the way, we loved all of Steve Spangler’s science activities. I highly recommend them! We also brought in one of his bag tunnel science activities. Everything turned out so well even if we were all in masks this time. It was a very memorable event, and the kids again had a blast learning something new too! Anytime you can squeeze in learning at a birthday party, I would say to do it!
We got him a science lab jacket he wore for his special day! I had fun with the science themed party decor as well. I was able to find some good ones with this theme, and all of the science activities were so much fun.
We had so many science activities going on that I didn’t take too many photos of the decor. You can see here though I got these cute science cups for the kids, and a science gift bag filled with science related toys.
Interested in doing of the science activities from Steve Spangler? Find the hydrophobic sand activity we did and his other ones HERE.
8th Birthday Party Theme: Hershey Characters/Chocolate Factory (at Hershey Chocolate World)
Chocolate! This birthday theme is special to us since we made many trips to Hershey to their amusement park, hotel, and spa during the pandemic. More on Hershey in another blog article though!
This was another hands-on activity based birthday. The kids were able to see a 3D movie with Hershey characters, design their own candy bars together in the chocolate bar making experience, go on the Hershey Chocolate factory ride, and paint with edible paint on the tables. The Hershey characters also visited us in our private party room. Yes, this birthday party was probably the most expensive one we did. I’m glad we were able to do this one!
We also surprised my son with a trip to Great Wolf Lodge after his birthday celebration. Check out my article on that coming up here!
We enjoyed these hands-on activities during this birthday celebration with lots of friends from school, other friends, and family!