Pinterest had me, the non-crafty and non-cooking mum believing I could whip up a Disney Cars themed party for a gaggle of rambunctious boys with ease and effortlessness.
Last year, we were guests at a lovely lady beetle themed girls 4th birthday party complete with tea party and calm crafty fun. And so, thinking that a boy party would equally be as lovely and inspired by Pinterest, I went ahead, guns blazing and threw a fully themed birthday extravaganza, which has ruined it for all parties to come.
Liam’s supercharged 4th birthday ruined us
Liam’s 4th birthday party was not like the organised, gentle and softly spoken girly party that we had been guests of.
Liam’s was super charged with 16 boys and 2 girls, some smashing pinata’s before it was officially “take your turn hitting a pinata” time. There were sweaty boys loaded up on sugar jumping around in the bouncy castle, a cacophony of noise made up of screams, running, water balloon fighting and chasing. At one point I saw a couple of boys pushing the cubby furniture down the slide.
There were, balloons, toys and food strewn out all over the house and yard. There was a buffet of themed platters for both the children and the parents of the children. There was knocked over cake and chaos and the never ending cleaning. We had one overtired but happy boy and us parents a disheveled mess.
For Liam’s 5th birthday still reeling from last year, we decided to give parties of any kind a wide berth.
Liam did have a few crocodile tears and we will forever live with the guilt of depriving him of a vague early childhood memory. However, this year’s birthday festivities was calm, low key, less expensive, quieter and much easier.
Liam spent his 5th birthday with his family doing all his favourite things, throw in a supermarket iced sponge cake topped with miniature toy dragons and a string of present openings throughout the day and he was a happy little vegemite.
Happy 5th Birthday Liam boy
Here’s a little glimpse into the first five years of your life. We love you all the way to the moon and back. Born a Queenslander with great lungs. At 5 months you had already flown across the Pacific Ocean to the USA.
You had your first two birthday’s in St Louis, Missouri, USA.
Your first beach swim was on the shores of St Martin, Caribbean, before you could even walk.
Before you were 2, you had flown in a helicopter over the Grand Canyon.
You have done the Whistler ski season.
You have travelled across America, here’s but a few snaps:
You have flown in a light plane over New Zealand’s snowcapped mountains and cruised beautiful Milford Sound.
You have seen the tallest building in the world.
You have witnessed many beautiful sunsets.
As for your bucket list, you’re not doing too badly, in your 5 short years you’ve been to; America, Canada, St Thomas, St Martin, Turks & Caicos, Mexico, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates and around beautiful Australia.
How blessed are we to have you in our lives and we hope to continue to give you the gift of travel and …. maybe a party every couple of years or so?
Have you been to or threw a crazy boy party? What do you think to party or not to party? Please leave a reply below:
Great post! I enjoyed reading it a lot. Organizing a kids party is quite difficult because no one knows their reaction on different games or foods. So its better choose a idea that goes with all for example, hiring a magician. Children like to watch a magician show and a expert magician know how to attract children.
You had me at your first sentence when you described yourself as a non-crafty non-cooking mum!
We give our boys a party each year but the way we manage it is to limit the numbers – maximum of 8 kids seems to work ok. I thought I had a great idea of having my son’s 4th birthday last month in a playground. It was the armageddon of parties though with horrendous winds. My carefully made cupcakes (Betty Crocker’s finest), pikelets and sandwiches caught the wind and were airborne ending up in the dust. Love the photo of your son on his first flight. And what were you doing in St Louis? I spent Thanksgiving there once but didn’t get to explore much.
We really must meet to not craft and cook together 😉 Betty Crockers are the best, my kind of baking. We live in STL for 2 years for husbands work. Dragged me there kicking and screaming but had to pull me away in the end. It’s a lovely place. Good to know you’ve actually been to St Louis, not many Aussies go. xoxo
This was such a beautiful post– the pictures and the words! Happy Birthday, little dude!
BTW, my son was the exact same way the first time in the ocean when he was several months old! HA!
Wow, Liam–what a great life you’ve had so far… and you have so many adventures ahead!
We also go the “favorite things” route for birthdays… I think we’d all rather spend a day at the beach than clean up after 20 sprinkle-covered munchkins. 😉
Hi Emily, thanks for reading and coming by. Yes for the beach and no to 20 sprinkled covered crazies… I mean munchkins. xoxo
Happy 5th birthday! Quite a bucket list for a little ‘un.
But oh my goodness at the point where you said cubby furniture down the slide… well, it all seemed so familiar. We do parties every two years (the kids alternate – next year it’s T’s turn again). I can’t handle more than that. 🙂
Thank you! Always great to hear from you. Yes, I bit off more than I could chew and one very small party every two years alternating sounds like a good deal. PS: I turned off my Disqus commenting system. What do you think? It was causing a bit of grief on my page load. xo