This weekend is the third party to celebrate our oldest daughter's fifth birthday. Yes, this will be the third time we party. The first two celebrations included various family members, with plenty of food, cake and gifts. But this weekend will be her party with friends from school.
After much deliberation, I finally decided we should have the party at the
Little Gym. This is where both girls go for gymnastics, so it practically feels like a home away from home. The beauty of these commercial party places is that they handle all of the entertainment, serving, clean up, etc. The stuff that no one really wants to do. We'll bring the cake and the goody bags. Ah, yes.
Goody bags.
It's amazing how much angst the goody bags have caused me. I've struggled with finding a "theme" that was fun and crafty, rather than overdone and commercial. Wandering around
Deals yesterday, I finally hit on it. (Yes, Deals, it's commercial. The irony is not lost on me). We're going with an outdoorsy theme. Perfect for her little Montessori class of nature lovers, especially now that Spring has arrived.
We started with plain white kraft bags (with handles) and stamped each child's name on the bag. Then we decorated with stickers and markers. In the bags, we included bubbles, plastic bugs (for the boys) and butterflies (for the girls), flower seeds, candy (because "it's the best part of the goody bag!"), stickers, mini pinwheels and sidewalk chalk.
We found these sidewalk chalk friends at Deals.
We packaged each one individually, labeled them, and included them in the goody bags.
After the final RSVP's are in (that's right, we had one come in less than 24 hours before the party), we'll finish the goody bags with pretty ribbon and pack them for the party.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to photograph the bags before we left for the party. Once there, I didn't have a chance to get a picture before the kids snatched them all up. Given the frenzy, I'd say the goody bags were a success. The mini-pinwheels were a big hit!