Imagine: Inviting Kids to a Birthday Party

Our little baby is officially a big “three-year-old”:/news/2011/rosies-third-birthday-breakfast-interview/ now! She is such a grown-up girl that we had our very first kid-centered party to celebrate. (Includes video.)

Over the past several years, we’ve celebrated the girls’ “birthdays”:/news/2010/four-is-a-lot-of-candles/ with “lovely”:/news/2010/gimme-a-two/ “parties”:/news/2009/lucys-third-birthday/ that were “fun”:/news/2008/party-girl/ for both the adults and the (very few) children we invited. While the girls were in their “baby”:/news/2009/happy-birthday-dear-rosie/ “years”:/news/2007/its-my-birfday/, we didn’t feel the need to have kid parties with, say, age-appropriate games and clowns and goody bags and all that.

But now that our girls are developing friendships of their own, we decided to broaden our horizons. So, Rosie and Lucy each get their own “kid party” this year — plus a joint party in between their birthdays for grandparents and other grown ups. (We’ll see if we can stand the fun of three parties in six weeks!)

We followed the philosophy of “invite as many children as the age of your child,” which of course meant three little friends for Rosie. After spending a couple of weeks planning a whole line-up of activities, it dawned on me the night before the party that this was really going to be more like a biggish playdate than a raucous birthday bash. And that’s just what it was. It turned out to be just the perfect way to celebrate Rosie’s third birthday. Activities included:

* making lollipops out of colored paper circles, glitter glue, and pipe cleaners
* applying princess tattoos (a part that the one boy in attendance didn’t really enjoy much)
* a spontaneous book-reading break (instigated by that boy; see photo)
* playing “pin the candle on the cake” (a homemade felt variation of “pin the tail on the donkey”)
* cake! cookies! juice!
* opening presents
* playing with goody bag treats (particularly the jump-ropes) in the backyard

I tried to do as much baking in advance as I could, in order to actually enjoy the party myself. And it worked! We had coffee, mini-scones with dried cherries, fruit and cheese, a “pink lemonade” cake, and our favorite iced sugar cookies. Everyone enjoyed looking at baby pictures of Rosie and listening to a super-fun kids’ music mix of Jon’s invention. And I had fun too! An excellent introduction to the kid party for the Boyds. Stay tuned for Lucy’s at the end of April!

Here’s the video of Rosie very thoughtfully considering her wish and blowing out her three candles. As Lucy exclaims at the end, “Rosie is three now!”

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