I spent three weeks trying to figure out how to make a Bluey party that wasn’t just blue streamers and a store-bought cake. My daughter Emma turned four in February. She’d been watching Bluey for over a year — the kind of obsession where she quotes episodes at dinner and corrects me when I mispronounce…
My son asked for a Paw Patrol party when he was turning 4. Simple enough, right? Then I priced the licensed party supplies. A set of 8 Paw Patrol plates was $11. The official tablecloth was $14. A cardboard standee of Chase was somehow $35. By the time I added it all up, the official…
May 3rd birthday + Cinco de Mayo = fiesta party. 13 kids, $83, backyard, and a piñata situation I am still recovering from.
Eras party for 11 kids, 3 themed stations, $92 total. Complete breakdown.
We genuinely could not afford a venue. That was the starting point. My daughter turned eight in July, and the trampoline park wanted $340, the gymnastics place wanted $280, and I did the math and just — no. We have a small above-ground pool. It’s not glamorous. It’s 12 feet across and sits kind of…
My kid’s birthday falls on spring break every year. Here’s my system after 4 years of fixing the attendance problem. Maya’s birthday is March 28th. Which means every year, approximately half her friend group is somewhere in Florida with their grandparents. I planned an amazing party three years ago. Made the invitations by hand. Rented…
The Minecraft Movie comes out April 4th. My son has been vibrating about it for three months. His birthday is April 12th. So we have about eight days between “Dad took me to see the movie” and “Dad throws me a Minecraft party.” That is a lot of pressure. I have now thrown two Minecraft…
My son Max turns 5 on April 3rd. This year that puts his birthday two days before Easter. Last year it literally fell on Easter Sunday. We have done this four years now. I have made almost every mistake you can make. Here is the actual system — not the Pinterest version, the real one….
My son Liam has been Minecraft-obsessed since he was four. Not “watches some YouTube videos” obsessed — “builds working redstone contraptions and explains them to me for forty-five minutes” obsessed. So when he turned seven, I committed. Full Minecraft party. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Three weeks of planning and one…
Party Hat Decoration Stations: How I Turned $12 of Cone Hats Into the Best 30-Minute Birthday Activity I’ve Ever Run Three years ago I bought $40 of party games for my daughter’s 6th birthday. Musical chairs ended in tears. Pin the tail on the donkey took four minutes and two kids got dizzy. I spent…
