Perry had his first big kid birthday party (one not at our house) on Saturday. He wanted to have a bowling party like his big sis and he also wanted an Outer Space theme. This theme was super fun, I have to say. First, we made the invitations by scanning Perry's drawing of a rocket and adding his little face. The rest of it was just me messing around in Photoshop.
For the party bags and favors, I tried to keep it simple and use things that I had on hand. There are TONS of different things you can do for an Outer Space party but I just used red lunch bags and alphabet stickers from my scrapbook stash. I also stamped on some stars.
For the favors, each boy got a cool spaceship and a little alien pop-up guy (as well as some propaganda from the bowling alley). All of my original ideas for party favors got vetoed. Astronaut badges? Too young. Door hangers? Too boring. Picture frames? Too girly. Luckily, this spaceship idea finally got the thumbs up. I saw it online somewhere and mine is a quicker (sloppier) version. I stapled two sturdy lunch size paper plates together around the edges, cut some styrofoam balls in half and hot glued each half to the top of each plate set. Then I painted them with silver acrylic paint and used yellow and black tempera paint for the windows. These are meant to be flung around the house like frisbees so hopefully they stayed together for more than three seconds…
And, my mom made this yummy cake for the party! She had her own homemade cake making business in the 80's so we have had some amazing birthday cakes over the years. We used to comb through her old cake decorating books when we were young, trying to find the perfect cake for the occasion. My kids put in their orders just like we used to. Thanks, Mom. For this one, she made a simple chocolate sheet cake with chocolate and vanilla frosting, and used vanilla wafers as the bases for the planets.
And then, of course, there was bowling. I love watching kids bowl. And I love listening to their conversations. I especially loved it when Perry opened one of his gifts (a Transformer) and his best buddy said, I think you're going to be very satisfied with this model, Perry.
I love birthday parties.
