The best birthday party I have ever attended was an outdoor bbq/water party. The mother bought a kiddie pool and lots of water toys. The parents were invited to stay and enjoy a lunch of grilled chicken, hamburgers and cold salads. The kids played and the parents enjoyed watching and talking. The kids had a blast and the parents did too. There was no stress of when to sing happy birthday and open presents because the birthday boy only wanted to play! We all had a blast!
Lyn

Our 4 year old had a Firestation Birthday! The local firehouse gave all the kids tours, a safety "briefing" and took their picture standing in the Fire Truck. They met Sparky the Fire dog, and all received coloring books and hats from the firefighters! The cake was a firetruck, and we used inexpensive firetrucks to decorate the table. Everyone took home little Matchbox Firetrucks as favors. They had a great time and half of them wanted to be firefighters when they grew up!
Meredith

Pirate Party - games: 1) walking the plank. I bought a 2 x 4, and put them on milk cartes. The children loved it. 2) The highlight of the day was the tresure hunt. I found an old trunk and glued old jewels and colorful rocks all over. then I purchased plastic pencil boxes and glued a jewel on each box filled with goodies (eye patch, gold coins, candy, ect...) put them in the trunk. We hid the trunk in a tree and sent the children off to different locations where they would find another clue, which brought them to the treasure box. Their expressions where priceless!!!!!
Modica

For my daughter's birthday we had a luau! We made leis and put them on everyone as they came through the door. We got some lights with palm trees on them and strung them across the fireplace. For the food, we made a pineapple and stuck fruit all over it. We also went with homemade Hawaiian food, you can find receipes on the net. Don't forget to set the mood with some music. Also, you can go to a Party shop and buy grass skirts. My whole family wore pineapple shirts. It was a big hit!!
Ashley

My daughter is a big NASCAR fan and her favorite driver is Jeff Gordon.She wanted a Jeff Gordon race car cake for her birthday so I searched everywhere for a cake .I found the cakes with the toy car on top of the cake,how boring I thought not much effort there. She has toy Jeff Gordon cars.Then a friend told about a web-site www.racecakes.com.After ordering the cake I could not believe the detail and how easy it was to make.And let me tell you it was a huge hit.I was the greatest mother on our block. Now every kid in our neighborhood wants me to make them one.
Kim

How about hiring a caricature artist at your child's birthday party and give ART as your party favor? I hired a caricature artsit to come to my child's 9th birthday party and we first did art and crafts, then a caricaturist came to draw each of the girls. It was a really unique activity and went perfectly with the art theme. Plus, each girl then had a caricature portrait of themeselves to take home ant put up in their room.
Betsy

We decided on Knights and Castles since he loved to play make believe and play with his Fisher Price Castle. Then I took ideas from a parenting magazine that I had been saving for a year or so that had the best ideas for that same theme and I planned the party from that article and also from ideas I found on the internet and from books at the library (excellent ideas from both).

I shopped at dollar stores and found theme appropriate goodies for the treat bags which included bubbled swords, crowns, chocolate money, knight stickers, fisher price castle colouring book and crayons, plus other items I don't recall (it was three years ago). I made shields and swords out of cardboard and then made a castle out of boxes. The pattern to do this was in the magazine and included two towers that the kids could play in and a draw bridge door. For the remainder of the castle, I had approximately 20 paper boxes and I made available for the kids to make the walls of the castle (this kept them busy forever). I made a dragon head out of a box and we played what time is it Mr. Dragon (what time is it Mr. Fox) and this was also a big hit. I wrapped a potato in foil and decorated it with glitter and played hot jewel...whomever was caught with the jewel when the music stopped were sent to the castle dungeon. The meal wasn't anything festive, but I've since found plenty of wonderful ideas in books to have a royal feast, but most kids (or from my experiences with my son's parties seem to like hotdogs or pizza). The party was outdoors even though I decorated inside as well with hanging stars and shields, plenty of balloons and streamers. The best ending was a treasure hunt. Since the guests were 4 or just turning 5 and reading was at a minimum, I gave each guest a cut-out of a shield (different colours and different patterns) on the front of each shield. The guests were instructed to hunt for treasure by looking for the loot bag and matching the shield in their hand with the shield that was on the loot bag and if they found a loot bag that didn't match their colour or design, not to take it but to continue looking for their own.

The only disaster of the day was the cake which really wasnt that day, but the day before when I was trying to make it. I wanted this party to be the best ever so I wanted to make the cake that was in the magazine...a castle cake with cone towers and a cookie draw bridge....this from someone that's a cookie baker, not a cake maker. To make my long story short lets just say the lessons I quickly learned that night were ...#1 let the cake cool before you put it on top of the filling...#2 don't try to ice a cake until its cooled....#3 when placing filling on a cake, be sure to leave approximately a 1/2 inch to an inch around the cake so it doesnt smoosh out the sides and run down the bottom layer....#4 any cake can be fixed with a little imagination....#5 the cake is really for the moms...the kids say uhhh, can I have a piece and after one bite their done with it...#6 cake classes are offered at your local Bulk Barn or any store than supplies Wilton products....
B