Every mom has things they are amazing at and things that are just not their forte. For me, elaborate birthday parties with punny themes, cute decor, and Pinterest-perfect food represents the latter.
I think it’s a mental capacity issue for me. I’m also very analytical and just not overly creative. For a myriad of different reasons, kids’ birthday parties are not my thing. We’ve opted for what I like to call “Not Party” Parties, and thus far they’ve worked out great for our family.
In a nutshell, a “Not Party” Party is a playdate with cupcakes and balloons. I take what we already have scheduled in our normal lives, add glitter and call it a day.
But guys…every dog has her day and our latest “Not Party” Party was one for the books! My 5 year old son has not stopped raving about it and I am reveling in this super rare mom win! And the best part of all is that the whole thing only cost me like $75!
This is how I pulled it off!
Xo,
Megan
First, a little back story: last year around my son’s birthday, I was in a really busy season at work and basically my entire job was on fire. As a result, I was drowning in all other aspects of life. So when it came time for his birthday, I had absolutely nothing left to give. No capacity to plan even a “Not Party” Party.
We have a small Bible study group that we meet with weekly, and between us all, there’s 11 kids. We decided to hijack one of our regular meetings and try to piece together some kind of celebration for my son’s 4th birthday.
Just add water balloons and call it a party
We happened to have a ton of those awesome instant water balloons leftover from the summer, so we told all the kids they could do a water balloon fight after Bible study. We bought some grocery store cupcakes to sing “Happy Birthday” with, and that was essentially it.
Fast forward to this year, and I asked my son for weeks what he wanted to do for his 5th birthday. I suggested taking some friends to a movie, a ninja party at the gymnastics place, the zoo…all kinds of things. And all he said literally every time I asked him was “Can I just do water balloons with my friends again?”
First of all, let this serve as a reminder, Mama, that at all times I promise you are doing SO MUCH better than you think you are! ❤️
But ok! We are gonna do a water balloon party again. Easy enough for me! We did hijack another Bible study night and do this with our small group kids again. These are the families we do all of our life with, so he truly wouldn’t want to celebrate any other way!
School friends party + family friends party
But he has also started to make an absolutely darling group of little friends in his preschool class, and he asked for a party with them, as well. We’ve done a few playdates with these kids, so I figured I could pull a second “Not Party” Party out of my hat for this request, too.
But then, I got to thinking of ways I maybe could spruce it up a little bit with not a ton of money. I just recently decided to stay home, so going down to one income has definitely forced us to get creative on ways we can stretch a dollar.
I thought of how I wanted to give the kids something else to do with the water balloons besides just throw them at each other. And I got this great idea!
DIY targets for water balloons
One of my son’s favorite movies is Monsters, Inc. So, I thought it would be fun if I drew little monsters on our brick backyard wall with chalk and the kids could throw the water balloons at them to try to “wash” them off and get rid of all the monsters.
We always have a ton of sidewalk chalk on hand, so all I really had to do was learn how to draw monsters. Thank you, Pinterest! I simply did a quick search for “easy to draw monsters” and got a TON of inspiration!
The night before the party after the kids were asleep (I wanted it to be a surprise!) I spent probably an hour and a half copying these little monster illustrations on our wall in chalk. I even drew some on our brick patio extension so my younger son and the other kids’ younger siblings could easily drop water balloons and smash some monsters, too!
You need to know, I seriously am no artist! I’m more of a numbers and spreadsheet kinda gal. So, trust me: if I can do this, YOU can do this!
And let me tell you, these kids LOVED IT! My son thought the drawings were so funny, and he even wanted to draw some of his own before his friends got there. (Good idea to expand on the fun: let the kids draw their own monsters and then let them go to town with the water balloons!)
The bonus perk that I didn’t expect was that this made the water balloons last a lot longer than I anticipated. With our small group, 10 kids went through about 400 water balloons in like 5 or 10 minutes. With the added “task” of having to aim at the monsters and find the one you wanted to smash, it took them a lot longer to go through the same amount of balloons–-probably more like 30 minutes.
Then, we had donuts to put a candle in and sing to the birthday boy; I made mac-n-cheese for everyone, and the other moms brought fruit and sides to contribute for lunch. And that was it!
backyard birthday party cost breakdown
It was an absolute blast! And so budget friendly! All total my costs were:
-
- 777 Water Balloons from Amazon: $25
- Mini Cupcakes from Fry’s for the small group party: $5
- Donuts from my neighborhood Bosa for the school friends party: $17
- Candles and some balloons/decorations from the Dollar Store: $15
- Sidewalk chalk: FREE but if you had to buy it, maybe $10
- TOTAL: $72
You cannot beat that, my friends! This was one “Not Party” Party that we won’t soon forget! And it was a good lesson for me that going even just a little bit above and beyond can have a really big pay off!