CONTROLLING Craziness: How to Host an Awesome Birthday Party at the Park

I'm back with the final post about my younger daughter's 7th birthday. Then I've got to move onto my older daughter's birthday party, and then my youngest son's birthday. Three birthdays in three weeks has been keeping me busy, and I've loved every minute of it.

I've already mentioned that my daughter didn't really pick a theme, she just made it know that she wanted a unicorn pinata. Since we were having her party at the playground again (check out last year's party at the same playground HERE for more ideas) I made things colorful and fun. The only unicorn thing for the party was the pinata. She had her rainbow unicorn parfait and gift in a DIY unicorn gift bag the day before on her actual birthday.

Once again we invited her entire class, which made the choice to have it at the playground instead of our house a no brainer.

As for the invitations, I used Pinterest for ideas liked this one HERE and HERE.

I designed it at Walmart.com using their templates and had them printed off for just few bucks, much cheaper than buying them off Etsy.

When it came to decorating for the party, I started in the parking lot.

I saw THIS idea on Pinterest and thought it would be a fun way to lead guests from the parking lot to the playground.

Rather than buy helium balloons or a tank to fill them up, I found some balloon stick holders at Walmart. You can get similar ones at amazon HERE.

Bonus: they are reusable so I'll be using them again and again.

(Side note: I didn't realize the balloons would become more than just a party decoration. By the end, the kids had taken the sticks out of the ground and were playing 'swords' with them. Most balloons popped before the party ended but it was still a lot of fun to have them around and I'd certainly decorate with them again.)

To add a few more activities to the usual playground equipment, I brought a few of our toys from home: a play tunnel, some balls to bounce on, scooters and sidewalk chalk.

We also had some activities on the picnic tables under the pavilion.

We had a make your own bubble wand station. I filled up two gallon buckets with homemade bubble solution for the kids to use. Pipe cleaners decorated with beads could be made into bubble wands.

The most popular activity was face painting. My older daughter (who loves to paint) volunteered to do some face painting. Every kid got their face painted at least once. Some wanted simple flowers painted on their cheek, others wanted a more elaborate design such as painting their entire face to look like a green sea monster.

Even my little guy got a batman sign painted on his face. Here he is hanging out at the food table. Speaking of food, I made sure to have lots of finger food or food in grab and go packages. We had cups to put the popcorn in, and instead of a cake we had cupcakes.

And of course my daughter got her beloved and well requested unicorn pinata. It was easy to hang from the basketball net.

Once the kids had beaten all the candy out of it, they had full ripping the pinata to shreds limb by limb.

Should I be concerned at the amount of joy they took in pulling this thing apart?

Hosting a party at the playground is easy. The playground provides most of the activity for the kids and clean up is a breeze. Just make sure you bring a few extra toys and games for the kids to play with, as well as plenty of grab and go food. You don't need to do a whole lot as the kids will just eat and play. About halfway through I corralled the kids over to do the pinata and after that we sang happy birthday and had cupcakes. Then the kids went back to playing. This is one of the easiest parties to host and since I have three birthdays in three weeks, I like it when I can do something easy.

If you are looking for more ideas and tips about hosting a park party, check out THIS ARTICLE from Daily MOMtivity. I used her ideas about the individual packages of food and the mini sized waters.