Places to Go - Two Fun, Easy Prepackaged Children's Birthday Parties - Bowie Baysox & Kettler Iceplex

BOWIE BAYSOX

For T's 5th birthday he wanted to take a few of his besties to a Nationals game. At first, this seemed easy enough, but I worried about the responsibility involved with bringing 5 preschool-aged children to such a crowded place. So when one of my friends told me about Bowie Baysox birthday parties, I liked the idea of a much less stressful baseball option.

The party comes with covered picnic table seating (so you can both eat and watch the game), food for everyone, and unlimited passes to Louie's Kids Park (which contains a carousel, bounce house, batting games, and more). Plus, the birthday child can announce a batter live over the loudspeaker and tour the stadium. Pretty cool.

Not surprisingly, none of the kids spent much time watching the baseball game (the Baysox lost), but all in all the party was a success (and SUPER easy). Click here for more info.



KETTLER CAPITALS ICEPLEX

Somewhere along the way I realized that I never posted about P's 7th birthday party, which isn't good as there's always a chance that some day in the far far future P might choose to peruse this blog and wonder how we neglected to celebrate such events. Anyways, this year for her birthday P REALLY wanted an ice skating party, which seemed like an odd choice as nobody in our family knows how to ice skate (P went ice skating with a friend a few weeks before and decided she NEEDED to celebrate her birthday by gliding around in circles).

Luckily, a birthday party at Kettlers proved easy enough. The party comes with pizza and drinks, which the kids eat in a private party room prior to skating. The skating portion of the party coincides with public skate and includes skate rentals for every invitee. You can pay extra for a 30 minute group skating lesson in case some children haven't been before.

The party lasts about 3 hours, which proved a little too long for most of the girls. But all in all, it was super easy and pretty fun. Click here for more info.

Things to Do - F's Science Birthday Party

For F's 7th birthday she "really really really" wanted a science party. This seemed hard, especially since I'm not much of a "party" mom (remember when I neglected to put candy in the pinata?). Children's birthday parties stress me out. As do most events where I have to entertain people without the use of alcohol. Luckily, I'm friends with Not-So-SAHM, who is amazing at this type of stuff. So she came and decked out our party room for the big event. Phenomenal, isn't it? She even made slime for party favors. F was in heaven.



We started the party off with science sticker scenes from Oriental Trading Company (this assured that all the kids had something to do while we waited for everyone to arrive). Then the kids decorated their own lab coats. The boys made fake blood. The girls drew hearts.



Then the "science" began. Good friends came up with lots of wonderful ideas for do-it-yourself experiment making, but I could only handle so much, so I went the easy route and purchased these Be Amazing Lab-in-a-Bag Test Tube Wonders kits from Amazon (one for each child), which I highly recommend. We made sand that doesn't get wet. Then we made fake snow. Then everyone started to make sandy snow. When things started to spill, I started to stress. So we decided to let the kids do the rest of the experiments at home and we gathered everyone outside.



All science parties need a big explosion. Luckily mentos and 2Ls can provide such magic for a (relatively) low cost (click here for more info). And the kids jumped up and down like crazy.



After the explosion, we ate pizza and serenaded F over a pile of homemade cupcakes. We gave each child a bowl of white frosting and different colors of food coloring, so they could "mix" their own creations. Then we had various candies on the table for cupcake decoration.

Finally everyone went home and I cleaned like a woman possessed. And F seemed really really happy, thankfully.

Things to Do - TWO!!

TWO!! He's really two, I know how cheesy this sounds, but I really can't believe it. I enjoy this stage (tantrums and everything), but there's something bittersweet about the fact that my youngest is no longer a baby (i.e. I'm OLD). On the other hand, life really is getting easier. Last weekend, I read a book on a blanket in the yard while T played with trucks next to me and F read stories to P in the hammock. And a few days ago, at the playground, I read two whole New Yorker articles while T made me "pasta" out of mulch and F & P bonded with a girl they met. Some days I can actually feel the stress leaving my body.

For T's birthday, we had a small celebration. F's playgroup meets on Fridays, so I invited everyone over for decorate-your-own-cupcake and an Elmo pinata. I thought I'd finally escaped my bad pinata karma (click here for the story) but the strings didn't release the candy, so the big kids took turns beating Elmo up. I worried that this would traumatize T, but he seemed so overwhelmed by it all that I couldn't gauge his response.



My mom bought him this truck set for his birthday and he takes everywhere (he even sleeps with it). It's funny, when the girls were little I NEVER let them walk around in just diapers. For reasons that seem silly now I associated unclothed children with bad parenting. I assumed that people would think "how can we trust a woman who can't even put clothes on her baby?" (actually people really do think things like this or so I've learned from DC Urban Moms). But now that it's summer we often leave T only in a diaper and I find him adorable like that. I guess I've finally realized how fleeting these stages are - how he'll soon be out of diapers and picking out "big-boy" underwear. And then grade school and prom and etc. (okay, so I'm getting ahead of myself).

Things to Do - Put Candy in the Pinata

I don't know about everyone else but planning my kids' birthday parties really stresses me out. Children's birthday parties are sort of like the bar exam -if you do too well, you feel like a loser because you could have studied less; if you fail you feel like a loser because failing stinks. So the goal is to JUST PASS. Last year, we went a little crazy and booked the Great Zucchini (yup, that would be MY PICTURE on the first page of his website), who was AMAZING. But this year we wanted to scale down. So I planned a party at Hidden Pond Nature Center. All things considered, everything went well enough - live animals, fishing with nets, crappy pizza, and a princess cake. But NOBODY EVER TOLD ME THAT YOU HAVE TO PUT YOUR OWN CANDY IN THE PINATA. Truth be told, I did wonder why it was so light, but I chose to ignore any thoughts of concern. Oh well, watching all the children pull the strings and wait was sort of amusing. In a mean way. Luckily, it was at the end of the party, so someone started handing out goodie bags and the children all left in perplexed confusion. Now I know.

Have a great weekend everyone!!
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If you're looking for something funny this is making it's way around the web. If you've ever considered going to law school or if you're already a lawyer, you really have to see it.

If you're looking for something beautiful, I love the photographs from the 10/10/10 project.

If you're looking for something inspiring and positive and happy - this seems like such a great idea.

And, if you're looking for something to do (in the DC area), this blog always has great suggestions.