It’s been 90 degrees or above, with 90 percent humidity for the last two weeks! Coming from the Midwest where winters are typically below zero, I normally don’t complain about warm weather. These are the days, when summer becomes a bit too long for my eight year old son. It’s too hot to play outside… I’m bored inside… I seem to be hearing the repetitious whining about this time every year.
My son’s birthday is in January, and he celebrates a “winter” birthday every year. After brainstorming ideas of how to bring about some excitement to cure his summer blues, I decided to throw him a “1/2” birthday party. I involved him in all of the planning, assigning him tasks and projects along the way.
He helped make the guest list and invitations. We invited many of the boys from his class that he hadn’t seen yet this summer. We wrote in each invitation that they should not bring gifts; instead, they should bring a bucket filled with one dozen filled water balloons, and they should come prepared to get wet. We shopped at discount and party supply stores for summer themed decorations. We purchased a bright yellow sunshine shaped piñata and hung it up in our garage.
We set up a “build your own ice cream sundae” spread in our kitchen and served chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream. We had a variety of toppings such as, chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, strawberries, crushed Oreo cookies, crushed Butterfinger candy bars, mini M&M’s, whipped cream, and maraschino cherries.
We kept the party short and simple, but fun. It started at 2:00 in the afternoon and ended at 4:00. I found out to keep children’s parties short, from experience. There are so many different personalities in children that can unfortunately sometimes clash. When they do – believe me, it can make for a miserably long party. Kids seem to have a “two hour” window of good behavior. If you can keep them busy and involved in activities you will have two hours of fun.
After the party guests arrived we started by playing a few outside games like tug of war, bean bags, and then let everyone cool off with a good old fashioned water balloon fight. When “time” was called and the boys dried off, they then proceeded to the “build your own sundae bar”. They ate their creations outside and ended the party by putting the smack down on the sunshine piñata. When I asked my son how he thought the party went, he proclaimed it “the best day of my life!” Oh, to be young again!!!
Send me your ideas to defeat the "Dog Days of Summer" to
christine@party-sense.com. I would love to read them and feature you in an upcoming post!
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