We like to celebrate around here.  It makes life interesting and fun.  It helps our kids to stay motivated.  They set and achieve more goals when they have something that celebrates them to look forward to.  It all started when my oldest was learning to ride a bike.  It felt like such a big deal when he finally figured out how to balance and zoom down the culdesac all on his own.  Learning to ride a bike was hard for me.  I was eight years old.  It took me a while to get up the guts because I was terrified of falling and we lived on a hill at the time.  My dad finally convinced me to give it a try in the flat church parking lot.  I did pretty good until I fell into a thorny bush on the side because I couldn’t figure out how to stop.  Bike riding still makes me a little nervous.  Luckily driving lessons went better for me!

Anyway, when my oldest learned how to ride a bike at age five I was pretty excited.  He was by far doing it better than I did.  His sister is only a year younger and was determined to keep up with her older brother in everything.  She wanted to learn to ride her bike too…at age four!  And of course the three year old didn’t want to be left out.  So, a new tradition was born.  I wanted my son to be proud of himself for all of his hard work to ride a bike.  He was about to be outdone by his younger sister after all.  So, we called grandma and asked her to join us at the ice cream parlor for a “party” to celebrate my son learning to ride his bike.  Afterwards he could show off his new skills.  Of course, grandma oohed and awed in all the right places and our little ice cream party was a hit.  A few weeks later we celebrated again at a different ice cream parlor for the four year old sister.  And not long after that we celebrated the three year old finally being potty trained.

You really don’t have to put much effort into impressing kids.  Its all in the magic of the title and making sure they know it’s all about them.  If they feel noticed and appreciated, they blossom.  Let’s face it, that’s a universal rule.  All of us want to feel noticed and appreciated, and it really is the thought that counts!

Some of these following milestones have been really successful with a motivating party to look forward to…

1. 1. 1. 1. Potty training.  Potty training kids can be a nightmare.  I have tried so many different things.  At first, it really is about little rewards to get your kids excited about “trying.”  We have used candies, stickers, and dinky dollar store toys.  But it takes a while for them to actually figure it out.  Once they figure out how to do it, it is about controlling it and stopping it.  I consider them trained if they stay dry and accident free during daytime hours for three to seven days depending on the child and the situation.  Then we have a party.  They still have occasional accidents and I give them a little leeway for bedtime, so after party time there is still a little work to do.  But, if you wait too long, they lose interest.  My most recent potty trained child does not like ice cream and chose a pizza party instead.  Whatever works for your kids, still works!
         2. Learning to read.  Reading is a hard thing to teach and takes a lot of patience.  There are many steps involved.  Of course you start with your letters and sounds and then learn how to put them together.  It takes several years until kids are reading comfortably on their own.  It is also a life skill that will bring great happiness and success to them.  Therefore, it is something we party about.  I want my kids to feel excited about reading and stay motivated to do well in school.  I usually let the kids take their time learning their letters through preschool and then the summer before Kindergarten I really focus on teaching them to read.  I love Bob books for teaching early reading.  It uses phonics words they can figure out from their letter sounds.    Sight words come later.  They are short, which is a huge bonus because reading long books with a new reader can become very tedious.  It takes a few sets for the kids to start to get the hang of it.  You can tell when it clicks too.  Putting the sounds together gets easier.  After a while we start trying to read Go Dog Go.  When they can read the book by themselves, they earn a party.  They love finishing that book by themselves for the first time.  It’s fun to watch their excitement!
            
         3. Riding a bike.  Like I mentioned earlier, learning to ride a bike is a huge life skill.  We wait until they are ready to try which is usually around four or five years old.  We take off their training wheels and do the typical run behind them thing.  I know many people that have had luck with those strider bikes to teach their kids the balance of riding a bike without a parent holding on for dear life.  I never wanted to spend that kind of money but if you are all about your kid learning to ride all by themselves, then more power to you!  We set a certain distance away, then they have to turn around and come back, and they have to start and stop on their own.  Once they do those things, they have earned their party and they love to get there.  We also love that they get there!
            
         4. Performances or Grades.  When our kids work hard to achieve something and do a stellar job, it often involves ice cream!  They deserve to be recognized for all of their hard work!
         5. Puberty.  I know, it’s embarrassing that I threw that out there.  But bear with me; many cultures celebrate the entrance into adulthood, except ours.  It is so uncomfortable for most people to talk about it.  It is so uncomfortable for us to discuss anything related to our bodies and our future marriage relationships.  This is backwards.  In our society they have so much false and derogatory information thrown at them from the public domain and almost nothing from the private sector.  It’s time to take it back into our own hands and teach kids about the miracles of our bodies and the miracle of life and how to be respectful and positive about it.  When my kids hit puberty it is a time to celebrate them growing up a little and welcome them into our worlds.  And yes, I have “the talk” with them long before puberty.  It isn’t just one talk though.  It’s an ongoing conversation whenever new questions and situations come up and we are respectful about everything they need to know.  So, take that girl out to ice cream and pedicures.  Take that boy out for basketball and sodas.  They will remember that time with you in a positive way and know who to come to when they run into problems.
         6.  My list is ongoing.  My kids are still young.  I have a lot of mothering left to do.  I am taking things as they come.  I’m not really sure what else we will be celebrating in the coming years, but I know we will be celebrating.  Life is about living in the moment and enjoying the blessings of today.  The younger kids look forward to their ice cream parties, bike riding parties, reading parties, and so forth.  The older kids look forward to initiating them into the next phase of childhood.  I look forward to watching them grow into wonderful, capable humans.  I just hate that it is all happening so fast and I am really going to miss these little humans when they aren’t so little anymore.  But that is another milestone in my future that we will have to celebrate!
         7.  

My girls know how to party and love to have friends over.  When my kids turn eight, they get to have their first late night party, which usually spans from 6-10 PM.  It really makes them feel grown up to stay out later than usual and no one misses the slumber party.  I may be a bit of a helicopter parent, but slumber parties make me nervous.  I don’t think it’s safe to stay overnight at other people’s houses in this day and age.  Plus, the thing kids like most about slumber parties is playing with their friends later than usual.  No one really likes sleeping on the floor and being super cranky the next day.  So, this is how we do things.

My oldest daughter was in love with the American Girl movies.  She has an 18 inch doll too, that she loves.  I wish it was a real American Girl doll, but we have a tight budget.  All the fun and imagination can be accomplished with any doll.  So it works for us.  She decided that this would be the perfect thing to do at her first late night party.

Invitations

We made picture invitations using a great website called smilebox.com.  If you pay a $40/year membership fee you get all of your creations in jpg format.  I love it because we can drag and drop photos into super cute formats for invites and print.  It looks like I spent a lot of time on an invite that literally takes five minutes.  I usually print a 4×6 photo of the invite at Costco for a few cents a piece and it really is a cheap but classic way to get some nice invitations.

You can follow the format below for your own party or make yours unique depending on your favorite American Girl Doll.  I know your daughter will love it.

Theme:

American Girl Doll Saige and her movie Saige Paints the Sky.  Saige loves to paint in the movie, so use painting decorations and activities.

Decorations:

I used the paint theme to decorate.  We had very colorful paint splattered tablecloths and paper utensils.  We also used a broom stick as a giant paintbrush on the wall with a big poster sized paint pallet.  We added a few multi-colored streamers and balloons to fill the empty space.

Cake:

It is fun to decorate or “paint” cupcakes as the cake and an activity.  Get a rainbow cake mix to make the cupcakes with.  Use white frosting, separate it into a few different bowls, and use food coloring to dye each bowl of frosting a different color.  Get some sprinkles and skittles to decorate the top with.  Each party goer needs a plastic knife to decorate.  Take pictures and eat.

Activity 1:

We bought little square canvases at Walmart in the craft section.  You can get a four pack for around $5.  I also bought some acrylic paint in a variety pack with several paint brushes. Each kid gets to paint their own creation.  They will spend a lot of time on this.  The canvas makes painting seem cooler than just using paper.

Activity 2:

Watch the movie.

Food:

If you don’t want to serve dinner, then go ahead and start the party around seven.  If you do want to serve dinner start it at 6 or 6:30.  Hot dogs, pizza, and chicken nuggets make easy party food.  Let your birthday kid pick.  Mine picked hot dogs, cheetos, and grapes.  It was a hit!

Leave extra time for the kids to just play with each other.

My kids ended up playing Just Dance on the X-box Kinect.  You might want to have everyone bring their dolls and play together.  The sky is the limit.

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People are shocked to find out I throw a party for each of my kids every year.  I only get to spoil them once a year, 18 times, and then they are gone.  In such a big family, it is only fair that they get some special attention at least once a year.  It’s worth it.

Pick a theme.

Let your kids pick.  It can be a favorite activity, character, movie, treat, animal, or toy.  Use your theme to create the mood, but don’t go overboard.  Throw a few things on the wall or pick a unique location.  It is enough.  Your kids will love it.

Invite their friends.

Kids love to be surrounded by the magic of play.  Friends also help add a little spice to the day.  It’s a variation from normal home life.

Reduce the Structure.

Let them have play time during the party.  If you have too  many structured activities it is stress on you, and they just want to play anyway.  Pick an ice breaker activity like charades or pin the tail, then have some activities that allow more freedom like hide and seek or a scavenger hunt.  If you need to fill time, try a craft.  Just make sure it is a craft they can do alone, like playdough, coloring/painting, or stringing beads.

Provide a treat.

If you are good at making cakes, do it.  But, it doesn’t always have to be cake and the treat could provide an activity for your theme.  Get creative.  Try an ice cream bar, or frosting cookies or cupcakes.  If your kid doesn’t like cake, try a doughnut tower.   If you aren’t good at decorating a cake, try a toy on top that matches the theme.  Your kid loves it and everyone thinks you are amazing. Boom!

Take pictures.

Your child will love looking back at the party with their friends and their cake and remembering.  The more they remember, the fonder the memory becomes.  They will remember you made them feel special on a very special day.

You can do it!  Don’t forget to check out some of our other ideas for birthday parties!