hotstuff's Profile

For my son's birthday parties, I pretty much let him decide the theme, based on what he's totally into. For his third, which was in December, we had a firefighter party. He watches Youtube and kept looking at an instructional video of how to make a fire engine cake. So I made that, took the kids to a tour of a fire station and back at our place we drew chalk flames on the patio wall and had the kids "hose out the fire", complete with dry ice at the base of the wall to create smoke. It was a lot of fun to put together, and it was simple.

I love parties that allow the kids to run around and just have fun - no over planning or having a bunch of activities planned for the duration of the party.

Like Sarahc1517 said, I too love this after reading the investment post. My 3 year old knows to only use paint, markers, etc at his craft table and by the crazy looks on my face, he knows to not play with Sharpies. But just in case, we opted out of buying an expensive couch and loveseat. It's not the best or most comfortable, but it will do for now.

MonicaK, I'm with you. It looks like something from a sci-fi film - where the humans are being "taken over".

As a parent of a toddler, there are things I never expect from a party host:

1. that they are inviting my kid
2. that they are responsible for providing an activity for my child. It's my job to watch my kid at a party and to provide quiet distractions.
3. that they are responsible for providing "kid friendly" food. Again, if my kid won't eat what you're serving (which is rare because he loves to eat whatever everyone else is eating) that's on me.

The only time I would expect these things if it's a kid's birthday party.

Wow, you guys are taking this too seriously. I think it's fun to imagine all that tackiness. This is hilarious.

What we do in the mornings after a dinner party is the same thing we do when we don't have a dinner party. I fix my three year old a bowl of cereal and he watches a DVD while I lay down on the couch. The dinner party in itself is a lot of planning - no need to go above and beyond for the morning routine. But we do try and have larger parties when he's away visiting his grandparents.

So cute!