kid parties

I don't know about you, but I think people tend to over-do it for their kids' parties. Too many people, too much going on. It costs a fortune (and I don't have one handy) and it is often overwhelming for the birthday boy or girl.

Last January, Raine turned five. She told us many times that she wanted a dinosaur birthday party, so we though over what we could do to make that theme something fun and unique. We had already decided to limit the number of kids we would invite and try to keep in fairly simple and fun for the kids, while still providing the basics like cake & ice cream, presents etc.

Ron found some resin dinosaur skeleton models, and came up with a great idea. Let's have a dinosaur dig in the backyard! He staked out each area, like you might see on an archeology dig, and buried the pieces of the models, one model in each area. The kids got shovels (OK spoons) to dig with, and paintbrushes to brush away the sand. And since the remodelling we had done the previous year had finished off anything that resembled grass back there (well not quite, but close), we had the perfect desert dig.

The kids had a blast digging up the models and putting them together. They had so much fun they buried them again to dig them up again! Each model had a card to go with it, and the kids got to keep the model they dug up.

I'm thankful that Carrie took pictures... more than I managed to do that day.