Thursday, February 28, 2008

Ideas please!

This year Sarah is turning 5, and things have changed quite a lot since last year. She is really into her friends at school, and we are going to have a BIG birthday party with all these friends for the first time. Last year we just had a handful of kids at our house, with just the regular goodies to eat and no games or anything.

This year the party will be at an outdoor park. We have rented a large pavilion (with electricity) next to Sarah's favorite playground. It is a very nice place with lots of green areas to spread out on and a nice lake as a backdrop. Another plus is that there usually is a breeze here, and since we will have the party on May 10, it will already be Florida HOT!

We have a theme! Mickey Mouse and friends. Rumor is that Mickey Mouse himself will be making an appearance (Ken was able to find a professional costume, just like the once at Disney World, cool!) Sarah is going to die when she sees that!

My question now is for you with experience: what do we do during these 2 hours? Games? Music? I have no clue! I know most of the kids, and they all like to have fun. We are not going to rent any ponies or have any magicians or jugglers and all that other crazy stuff parents do nowadays to out do each other.

I just want a fun party with a few activities to make things flow. Any ideas would be welcome!

4 comments:

Desiree said...

Nagra klassiska lekar vore val kul att kunna kora i parken. Tex balansera ett agg pa en sked medans man tar sig fram sa fort man kan fran en punkt till en annan. Hela havet stormar (du vet med musik och fallstolar eller sma filtar som man lagger ut istallet for stolar). Fiskdamm gar val ocksa att ordna med ett skynke som man binder mellan tva trad eller nat. Levande sharader skulle man ocksa kunna ha. Tavlingar i att forst tugga kex och sedan vissla, forsoka fa upp ett apple ur en hink med vatten med munnen utan att anvanda handerna. De dar klassiska svenska barnlekarna kan ju vara kul att kora.

Saltistjejen said...

Jag håller med Desiree om att en del traditionella lekar ofta brukar uppskattas. Fiskdammar uppskattas typ alltid! ;-)

JaCal said...

How fun!

Well, we always do the "fish in the pond" which is appreciated since it's so unusual. I hate the American way of opening gifts at end with everyone looking. It takes time and is just a boring part of the party. I do see the point of opening so the "giver" can see his/her gift being "received". I've tried to do the opening of gifts right away when the guests arrive and it usually works out fine. The kids tend to get wilder at the end with all that icing... Last year we decided to the Daughter's birthday party small (she is also turning 5 this year - but in September). We did a artproject, all the kids got a "frame" one on of our wooden fences and got to paint BIG! They had tons of fun. We had gotten big aprons so no dresses would be spoiled. I'm looking forward to tem getting bigger so you can actually start doing things - before they were just too small to have more of an organized party. Mickey coming sure is going to be great! Can you do something around that? Maybe a treasure hunt around the park, collecting.... mini-Mickeys?? "Putting the ears on Mickey" - the traditional "tail on the pig"...? ;-)

S w e F l o said...

Roliga ideer alltihopa! Jag hade tänkt mig lite typiska svenska lekar, men man vill ju inte att de amerikanska föräldrarna ska tycka man är konstig! Här är det vanligt att de har kalas på olika ställen, med en inbakad aktivitet beroende på var de är. Lite svårt att totalt organisera 5 åringar förstås! Men en fiskdamm vore ju kul, de får ju ändå en present/godispåse. Jag kan knappt fatta att Ken har gått med på att klä ut sig till Musse Pigg, det blir nog en succee! Vi ska pp 5 års kalas nästa söndag (Chuckee Cheeses) ska spionera lite då och se hur de gör!