Tate is Five: The Activities (Part One)

Oh my goodness, things have been so busy! Work and Tate's birthday and party planning and baking and picking up my mom from the airport... whew! But I am so excited to tell you about Tate's birthday party! We had such a great time. I loved getting to see him with all his friends, and celebrating the amazing little boy he has become.

I'll admit, I really struggled with how to plan this party effectively. We don't have a large house or playroom, and the weather in April in Western Mass is iffy, so an outdoor party was not an option. With Tate's requested butterfly theme, something like a gymnastics party or something hosted at a local play area wouldn't work. Ultimately, I rented a room through the local Parks and Rec. It came with tables and chairs and that was pretty much it.

In considering the schedule, I decided to model the party after Tate's pre-school's annual Harvest party. This consisted of three individual art activities that were all set up on separate tables plus one table for food and drink. It looked like this:

I decided not to use table linens for a couple reasons. First, table linens (even cheap ones) are so expensive. And in my opinion, cheap ones never look very good. Also, they felt overly formal for this kind of party. So I ordered two rolls of this brown kraft paper (although one roll was more than enough to cover six 8-foot tables) and we covered the tables in it instead. I think it looked great, and struck just the right note. (Bonus- the kids had a great time drawing on it!)

For the centerpieces of the food table, I ordered 12 monarch butterflies on wire, which I added to the grass and pots I had bought at IKEA. I added white paper plates, happy yellow napkins, and juice boxes:

For the first activity, I purchased butterfly masks from Michael's for just $1.00 each. With three $1.00 sets of markers (from the Dollar Store) presented in glass jelly jars, and a few stick-on gems, it was a lot of fun and probably my favorite activity of the day. Seeing the creativity of each child was great.

 Aren't they sweet? A whole flock of butterflies.

Tune in tomorrow for the remainder of the activities, and how I think this kind of party can be cheaper and easier than a traditional one (no goody bags needed!)