It’s one of my favorite times of the year again – planning a creative, but easy birthday party for my kids!
I love to search Pinterest for party ideas but many of them just can’t be real! I want to see the cakes made by moms who can achieve something between a pastry chef and #nailed it! failures. Not photoshoots in the forest with a huge budget and a hired makeup artist. With a little creativity, resourcefulness with what you may already own and cooperation, you can make a super cute party happen without the cost and stress!
WELCOME!
I loved that my son wanted a Narnia theme. But I don’t do fondant and feared what it would look like if I tried to cut a cake in a lion shape. So when he asked for an ice cream cake, I rejoiced.
MAKING THE CAKE (or essentially buying it and sticking some toys and candles on top)
One of our favorite ways to decorate a cake is to include toys. Easy decoration, 3D effect and presenting a gift on top of the cake they can play with!
This year I found really cool, new in the package original Narnia McDonald Happy Meal toys on Ebay. Each moves in some way and came with a pop-up background. Three figures were used to make a scene on the cake and the other 5 got wrapped as a gift!
We bought an ice cream cake (great for any snow theme), white chocolate “snowballs” to decorate the edges, edible glitter and spray green frosting. At the last minute I stuck the washed toys and candles into the cake and sprinkled a little edible glitter around the Witch’s feet. The flowers are from the box of Playmobil toys. I love how the spritz of green looks like the frozen ground in melting.
On this very warm day I’ve never seen an ice cream cake melt so fast! But this only added to the story of Aslan’s power when he comes onto the scene. Spring is coming!
SETTING THE STAGE
I would normally love to make my own decorations and signs but with many life stresses going on lately, had to rely on ordering a castle decorating kit. And am I glad I did! Within 5 minutes my porch had been transformed into a palace ready for the sons of Adam! This was probably one of the easiest parties I have ever set up. I grabbed a Turkish table runner a friend gave me, (Yes, I realize we for some reason own a helmet ice bucket and most won’t…but try Ebay if you need one too!) taped up the kit pieces, set out the water dispenser, a pretty copy of the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, picnic blanket and present basket, food tray and plates and were done!
I also thought they could use the castle pieces later to play in their room or will come in handy for a Classical Conversations Faces of History Night.
The hour before the party was to start, I sent my husband and the birthday boy out to party store to pick his own balloons, while the rest of the family set up the decorations in about 20 minutes (why hadn’t I thought about sending them out before?).
All food when on plastic gold chargers you could get at the dollar store. I bought a couple at Target years ago and end up using them for almost every special occasion.
For cups, I looked for plastic goblets, but they were all so expensive. I found these packs at Wal-mart for $2 for 4. I marked their initials with permanent marker to dress them up and so they would use only one cup for the party. And I was excited that a friend from overseas gave us some Turkish Delight. Perfect! You can usually find this in the food section at T.J. Maxx though.
*Tip: Order the pizza delivery the night before so you don’t forget on the day of the party!
To add to the regal look we used gold plates and plastic-wear, silver napkins and gold striped wrapping paper from Target.
Last year we went fully dressed in costume, but with the theme being long medieval dresses and robes + 90′ heat, we decided to skip that this year!
I do try to find them a t-shirt to open first thing in the morning (one of our traditions!) that goes with the theme and they can wear right away. It took quite a bit of searching, but I did find a cool lion shirt on clearance at Old Navy.
BOOK SCAVENGER HUNT
One of the main parts of the theme of the party was a game that the birthday boy’s brother made.
I love this idea that the kids picked up from camp: making a scavenger hunt using any story book. It’s easy to design and play, and the kids don’t have to know the story to do the search. This was important to me so kids who hadn’t read the book yet (or couldn’t read) wouldn’t feel left out. They used a copy of “The Silver Chair” as their guide.
To make up your own game?
- Thumb through the book looking for objects that might connect to something around your house. For example: “we’re dying of thirst…” lead to the Water dispenser. “Garage doors” led to the garage, “the lion appearing” led to a lion statue in our house.
- Underline with pencil the sentence that points to the clue you’ve chosen. “we’re dying of thirst…”
- Write down the page number of each clue on a scrap of paper.
- Hide the next page number at the place of these clues. Order them to end with your goal. Ours ended with “finding the White witch” which led them to the cake!
- The “Searchers” will carry the book with them as their guide, looking up each page number for the next clue as them find them.
- *It is important to indicate the last slip as being the last clue so they don’t search forever for something else!
After Knighting all guests into Aslan’s army, my older son (12) started the scavenger hunt with this note:
For kids parties I think the schedule should be simple. They just want to play!
The Agenda for this party:
- My older son made swords out of balloons and “knighted” all of the guests into Aslan’s army (also his idea)
- Scavenger hunt for clues around the house and yard
- Hunt ended at the cake and we sang to the birthday boy
- The kids ate cake and fruit, picnic-style
- Opened presents on the picnic blanket
- Took presents inside and let the kids assemble and play with them for 30 minutes. This worked out well since he received Legos and the kids worked in circles quietly together.
- Pizza arrived and we went back out to our picnic blanket
- We parents prayed a blessing we had written out over the birthday boy
- Played in the yard and with new toys until the parents arrived
Finally, I’ve enjoyed spending time the week before the party to think of what qualities I see in my boys that year and asking God what He can do with those gifts and talents. Through this process I’ve written out a blessing prayer, the my child and us as parents would be molded by God to steer our son to glorify God with his life. To read more about our reasons for doing this, you can read here.
TO OUR SON – In his 9th year
Dear Father,
We pray that this be an amazing year where Your Spirit permanently takes up residence with Simon and Your fruit becomes increasingly evident; we ask that You bring into light his giftedness, that we might better lead him in it; that his heart would continue to grow to be undivided and be both empathetic and just and that he would always see what You are doing around him and through him; we ask that You would lead him as Your disciple whose faith affects every part of his life.
We ask that You empower him to know Your powerful healing, and quickness to forgive, and that he increasingly learn how to walk in victory in this world by listening to Your guidance. We ask that he continually and easily abide in joy through You and have a grateful heart and whatever it takes to turn bad situations into good ones.
We ask that You guide him in his love of music composition and that You would open up relationships that would inspire and foster using this gift powerfully to bring the hearts of people everywhere to healing and wholeness through worship.
We ask that his tender heart would lead him to stand in strength for all who face injustice, seeing them with the same value that You see in them.
We ask that his humor be used to tear down walls rather than people and that it would help him to make wonderful friends and make others feel at ease.
We ask that You would hone his passion for all that is righteous and have great discernment to choose the best path.
Make him a funny, wise, and kind hero for Your glory as Your son and Your instrument.
We submit ourselves as parents to be molded into the parents that his spirit needs most. Change our hearts that we may respond, listen and shepherd him well. He is Your young man, Lord, and we desire to guide him into all that is good to train him up as a warrior and champion for You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If I can leave one last heart-felt encouragement about parties, it would be to keep it simple and full of play. Have grace on yourself if life is too stressful or money is too tight. Allow other members of the family to have responsibility, and see their talents flourish. Decorate with what you already have around the house. Don’t worry about what other parents think, but do what delights your child. Pick what they like to focus on, not your grand ideas if they don’t match up. Allow time for play and don’t get too structured or spend much on entertainment. Kids know what to do with a yard, a ball or balloon sword! And show that you love them by noticing what they like and allowing that theme to be celebrated. You are really celebrating their tender little heart.
Have fun!
Enjoy reading about party ideas?
Intentional Grown-Up Parties: Planning with them in mind
5 Ways to Hold onto Their Childhood
To check out more photos and details from our party you can find us on Instagram!
*All links embedded in post are for your convenience. I make no commission.
This is brilliant! Thanks so much!
Wow what a huge blessing to red your post. I appreciate your heartfelt and sincere encouragement to keep it simple and honor my child’s ideas and wishes. Thank you!
Well done!!!!!