A Dino-mite Third Birthday Party
Greyson turned three and is officially in the midst of his little boy dinosaur loving phase. His favorite game is to pretend he's a T-Rex and go around scaring people. I was pretty excited about this theme and quickly took to Pinterest over the summer to get my creative juices flowing. I mean it's never too early to keep an eye out for cute decorations right?!
Color scheme: mainly green and orange, but I threw in some blue and yellow because I had some decor left over from previous parties that I wanted to re-use.
Theme: Dinosaurs obviously, but with a pre-historic jungle flair.
Food: It was a Saturday party at noon so I did pizza from my father's delicious and amazing brick oven pizzeria, Trackside Pizza. Also had him make some chicken wings and a large salad. Some family brought a few appetizers, and I put out chips and animal crackers for the kids. We had beer, soda, water, and fruit punch to drink.
Dessert:
Homemade vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream icing. (The dinosaur decorating kit was by Wilton purchased at Joann's)
Homemade sugar cookies shaped like dinosaurs and the number 3. (My mother-in-law always does the cookies; she uses the Alton Brown Sugar cookie recipe)
Double thick crispy rice treats. (Just double the batch and put the whole thing in a 9x13 pan)
Pteranodon nests (chocolate covered pretzel sticks with yogurt covered raisins for the eggs)
Prehistoric Dirt Cups (Chocolate pudding, Cool-Whip and Oreo Crumbs)
T-Rex Head Watermelon with fruit salad.
Decor:
The dessert table:
I purchased all of the plastic table cloths at Party City. I borrowed faux greenery from my girlfriend Michelle and purchased the real greenery at Lowes. The weathered crate I had already and had purchased it a few years ago at HomeGoods. The two orange trays I purchased at Dollar Tree. The cake pops are just on spray-painted foam that I purchased at JoAnn's. I found grass skirts at Dollar Tree that I hung as the backdrop and of course had Angela from Just A Spoonful of Sparkle make the custom banners, picks, signs, and cutouts. For the food tent labels, I just cut and folded some white cardstock and slapped on some dinosaur stickers.
The Gift Table:
Plastic table cloth from the Party City. Dinosaur footprint table runner was just fabric purchased at JoAnn's. For the favors, I found sand buckets on super clearance at Michael's because it was the end of the summer. I also bought little shovels as well; this was for the kids to use in the "dino dig". Inside the buckets I just used regular paper bags, wrote their names and sealed them with dinosaur stickers from Michael's Crafts. For favors, I gave them candy, some dinosaur fruit snacks, mini dinosaur figurines, dinosaur stickers, and the fossils from the dino dig activity. The sign and cut outs on the wall were made by Angela from Just A Spoonful of Sparkle.
The Drink Station:
As you know or will find out if you continue to follow my blog posts, I LOVE my bakers rack. This thing is SO handy. The "roar" are just paper mache letters that I purchased at JoAnn's. The little plaque signs were on clearance at Michael's at the end of the summer. The larger plastic dinosaurs that I used throughout the party, I bought from a fellow Craigslist mom and some others were passed along from a friend. Cutouts were made by Angela from Just A Spoonful of Sparkle. Little chalkboard - I bought a while back at Michael's. Large drink dispensers are from Amazon.com. Paper goods and cups I purchased from Party City. I stuck some dinosaur stickers on the cups to dress them up a bit.
Tables:
I found the cool ancient jungle looking palms at Lowe's. Then just scattered some of the dinosaur toys in between.
Activities:
We set up a "Greyson's Dino Dig" in his little sandbox. I found some fake dinosaur bones and a set of ancient fossils at Michael's crafts. The kids had to dig for them and could put them in their treat buckets to take home. Dino dig sign made by Angela/ Just A Spoonful of Sparkle. She also made the "Camp Greyson" sign for our playscape. My parents bought Greyson the bounce house from Toys R' Us ahead of time so we were able to use it for the party. It was a huge hit. I highly recommend it. I read reviews online that were great and it seems like it is pretty durable. It was easy to set up and take down and all of the kids loved it.
Other:
I found the large T-rex balloons over the summer on clearance at Michael's Crafts. The other balloons were from the party store.
I have to say this was probably the most fun theme yet just because Greyson was so enthusiastic about it. He was exhausted from playing with all of his friends and chasing people around with the T-Rex mask that his Uncle Tom got for him. I had a blast putting this party together, and I am pretty sure that Greyson and his friends had a roaring good time as well!
Happy 3rd Birthday my sweet Greyson, you are my world!
