If you haven’t read my previous posts on birthdays, there are a few things you should know:
- I don’t do a huge party every year for every child.
- When I do throw a party, I like to keep it small and simple.
( you can read more about my past parties and party preferences in “A Blowout Birthday, Not Us!” and “Birthday Celebrations“)
This year was Honeybun’s turn to have a party. Her last party was three years ago when she turned three. We were still in Dublin and had a small celebration at home.
This year she really wanted a big party like all of her friends.have been having all year. For many reasons (you can read about them here) I wanted to keep it small so we agreed to go to a local craft place and do some pottery painting.
We went to paint a platter for hubby for Father’s day and all really enjoyed it (if you haven’t painted pottery before, read about it here). The place offered a package that included one piece of pottery, a sand art plus pizza for a very reasonable price. We kept the crowd small (luckily we have summer birthdays and don’t have to invite whole class!) and had five families attend (a total of 10 kids doing art, 4 toddlers and 8 parents) which was the perfect size for everyone to be able to socialize and enjoy their time without it being too overwhelming.
Most parties we’ve been to recently, the parents cart off the presents at the end of the party to (I guess) be opened at home. We finished our activities before our allotted time at the studio was up so I decided to have Honeybun open her presents from her friends there. The guests loved seeing Honeybun’s excitement as she opened each one though one of her friends got hysterically upset when she opened a set of Anna and Elsa dolls which her friend had been searching and searching for (apparently they’re hard to find, I offered to sell them on Ebay and make Honeybun some college money but she declined..)
The party was so easy, the craft studio provided everything, all we had to do was bring was the cake (see our butterfly birthday cake) and goodie bags (more on my simple, non-messy, parent-friendly goodie bags)!
