So Santi turned three last week, and after I dealt with the fact that he was actually growing up, I decided to plan a party for him. I started planning about 6 weeks ago, knowing I'd need some time to get some of the goodie bag things in order.
Santi has many things he likes, but a few things he really loves. Like all boys his age, he has a love for cars and trains and trucks. And garbage trucks. But none of those seemed interesting enough to have a party around. He also loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and a Spanish show called Pocoyo (I'm aware it's on Nick Jr. in English, but we watch the Spanish version only since we're teaching him Spanish.) For awhile I thought a Pocoyo party would be fun, but then realized that pretty much none of the guests would realize who Pocoyo was. So I decided to go with Santi's first love when planning - The Little Einsteins. He has been watching this show since he was 2 and LOVES it. As in, if I let him, he would sit and watch the shows for hours. Plus a lot of my friends kids also love the show, so I knew it would be fun for all.
Planning the party proved to be a little more challenging than I thought, since Disney runs the shows, but they haven't actually made any new shows since about 2009, so therefore they don't really have a lot of party merchandise with the show characters on them. So I decided to do what I always do and be creative and just DIY a lot of things.
First thing I had to nail down was a place to have the party, since having a bunch of kids in our house wasn't ideal, especially a bunch of energetic 3 year olds. So I managed to reserve a local community center. The bonuses of this place were that we only had to clean up the party room, it was cheap, and they had a strict two hour party time limit. Perfect amount of time to let everyone play and then go eat/celebrate downstairs. They had essentially a big rec room set up with kids ride on toys, climbing toys and slides for everyone to play on, which was nice, since we didn't have to bring anything.
After nailing down where it was going to be, I sent out the invitation. In the past, I've made up invites and mailed them out, but because it would have been cutting it close time-wise, I decided to just make an Evite and email it out, as well as invite people via Facebook.
The invite I made was the most interesting I could make it with the limitations of Evite:
Not super exciting, but it got the point across, right?
I then hit up my go-to spot for all things DIY - Pinterest. I searched for Little Einsteins birthday party and found a great post by seven thirty three where she'd done a lot of DIY Little Einsteins things and she had a bunch of free printables available.
I decided to print out the table toppers, water bottle labels and cupcake toppers, and used the cupcake toppers as stickers as well for the gift bags. I also headed to another party essential place - Oriental Trading and ordered goodie bags, music note pencils, bubbles crazy straws, and large music note decorations for the walls. Since I only had the first hour of the party (when everyone would be upstairs playing) to decorate, I didn't want to do too much, but wanted to have some things there that would be recognizable.
We picked a menu (strawberries, bananas (cut in half so there were more), a veggie tray and dip, chips and salsa, pink lemonade and blood orange Italian soda, water and pizza, and I started making the cupcake toppers, decorating and stuffing the goodie bags and creating the table toppers.
After an hour or so, everyone started to leave, so we cleaned up, brought the stuff to the car, and headed home where Gaby napped and Santi happily opened gifts and played! We all had a great time, but Santi said it was his favorite party ever! So definitely his best so far apparently!
Thanks for stopping by!
Santi has many things he likes, but a few things he really loves. Like all boys his age, he has a love for cars and trains and trucks. And garbage trucks. But none of those seemed interesting enough to have a party around. He also loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and a Spanish show called Pocoyo (I'm aware it's on Nick Jr. in English, but we watch the Spanish version only since we're teaching him Spanish.) For awhile I thought a Pocoyo party would be fun, but then realized that pretty much none of the guests would realize who Pocoyo was. So I decided to go with Santi's first love when planning - The Little Einsteins. He has been watching this show since he was 2 and LOVES it. As in, if I let him, he would sit and watch the shows for hours. Plus a lot of my friends kids also love the show, so I knew it would be fun for all.
Planning the party proved to be a little more challenging than I thought, since Disney runs the shows, but they haven't actually made any new shows since about 2009, so therefore they don't really have a lot of party merchandise with the show characters on them. So I decided to do what I always do and be creative and just DIY a lot of things.
First thing I had to nail down was a place to have the party, since having a bunch of kids in our house wasn't ideal, especially a bunch of energetic 3 year olds. So I managed to reserve a local community center. The bonuses of this place were that we only had to clean up the party room, it was cheap, and they had a strict two hour party time limit. Perfect amount of time to let everyone play and then go eat/celebrate downstairs. They had essentially a big rec room set up with kids ride on toys, climbing toys and slides for everyone to play on, which was nice, since we didn't have to bring anything.
After nailing down where it was going to be, I sent out the invitation. In the past, I've made up invites and mailed them out, but because it would have been cutting it close time-wise, I decided to just make an Evite and email it out, as well as invite people via Facebook.
The invite I made was the most interesting I could make it with the limitations of Evite:
Not super exciting, but it got the point across, right?
I then hit up my go-to spot for all things DIY - Pinterest. I searched for Little Einsteins birthday party and found a great post by seven thirty three where she'd done a lot of DIY Little Einsteins things and she had a bunch of free printables available.
I decided to print out the table toppers, water bottle labels and cupcake toppers, and used the cupcake toppers as stickers as well for the gift bags. I also headed to another party essential place - Oriental Trading and ordered goodie bags, music note pencils, bubbles crazy straws, and large music note decorations for the walls. Since I only had the first hour of the party (when everyone would be upstairs playing) to decorate, I didn't want to do too much, but wanted to have some things there that would be recognizable.
We picked a menu (strawberries, bananas (cut in half so there were more), a veggie tray and dip, chips and salsa, pink lemonade and blood orange Italian soda, water and pizza, and I started making the cupcake toppers, decorating and stuffing the goodie bags and creating the table toppers.
I went easy with these cupcake toppers and just glued them to cardstock (primary colors) and cut out the squares and then just taped the lollipop sticks (bought at Michael's about 2 years ago to make some treats for Santi's baptism, and I just keep pulling from them when needed.)
When I finally got to the party day, I had everything in the car, and sent my husband and kids upstairs to play while I set everything out. I managed to print out a sign for the door and did one of those "20 Questions" signs for Santi that are floating around Pinterest:
And then I set up the rest of the decorations:
We didn't have much to work with. :) Banner was one I'd picked up from Target for last year's Sesame Street party. Bucket is one I picked up at Target for Santi's baptism 2.5 years ago. Numbers were there already, but fit! :)
I took the page I'd printed off from online and put it on cardstock and then taped a barbecue skewer to the back and stuck it into some balloon weights we've had forever. Easy peasy. And I am glad I didn't do more because these got dismantled quickly once kids were there!
Gift bags (each contained a silly straw, bubbles, pencil with musical notes on it, stickers, and candy necklaces. I used the water bottle labels as the "thank you for coming to my party" and just stuck them in the bags rather than tying them on.
I also gave everyone a "make your own baton" kit. I found this on the Disney website and bought the supplies (small dowels and smooth styrofoam balls) at Hobby Lobby. Put them all in a clear bag with the directions. I was originally going to make all of these but I'm glad I didn't because each kid talked about how fun it would be to paint it their own colors!
Cupcakes with the toppers - and I just noticed I bought "Mission" tortilla strips...appropriate since we were "on a mission!" for the Little Einsteins! I also got some gluten free cupcakes for a friend and a friend's child who are gluten free!
After decorating, I headed upstairs to where the kids were all playing and having a blast. I'm actually a little sad that we didn't get more than an hour up here!
After an hour, we came downstairs to eat and sing "Happy Birthday" to the birthday boy (who thought it was great and clapped for himself at the end of the song!)
Thanks for stopping by!
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