It's amazing how a 'not yet 3' year old can want a birthday party with Andy Astronaut!
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| Adi's Christmas Gift |
Background-
Christmas 2010 Santa gifted Lil A a rocket with an astronaut. I'm sure you'd not be surprised that we named our new friend Andy (apart from Jim, Andy happens to be popular name for an astronaut). Now that we had Andy as a playmate our imagination sparked off with vivid make belief games; so much so that we are now deeply interested in the sun, moon and stars. Can't stop mentioning the backward 10 to 1 countdown, now also a ritual while playing 'peek-a-boo' games!
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| Adi at the museum |
Sometime in May this year, owing to his new found queries on the solar system, we took Lil A to the planetarium. Who could hold back the budding thoughts thereafter! :D Shooting stars, moon rock and solar dust were all we were talking apart from how exciting it is for Andy to embark on new missions!
So, one may just wonder why am I so 'surprised' about my little bundle of joy and his 'Space' escapades'...aren't we fuelling his imagination? :) OK, now that he's got his set of preferences in place there was a clear demand; Lil A wants a cake with Andy and the space ship! I should have guessed that this was going to hit me sometime!
With a clear agenda, I began party planning around the theme of 'Astronauts & spaceships'. The first on my list was the invitation. I designed this using 'Microsoft office' resources like clipart & publisher (was pleasantly surprised with the program especially since I am not a 'photoshop' pro) and then had it printed on simple color card paper. It was fun to see how my imagination actually found a form! Took me a day to have this one sorted. Here's a peek at the invite...
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| Invitation Card |
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| Reference for the |
Next came the bigger task of finding a cake that does justice to all the excitement that was building up around our cozy little home. I managed to do a whole lot of google searches and eventually zeroed in on a reference. Needed to brief the cake vendor on the shape and it was helpful...they managed to make a replica of what I shared (not that I had briefed them to work as copy cats)! This took around a week to get sorted but now I was confident that the 'Space' theme party would eventually 'Blast-off'! :)
With 2 big pillars of the party sorted came the 'entertainment' bit. This included the decor of the house as well as the games we'd play with our 3 to 5 year old. Quiet a vast set of audience as far as their motor and intellectual skills are concerned. After a lot of reading and scouting for idea's we finally had a fun list on our side. This is what we decided to do:
- First up, we will register our Lil Astronauts and hand them a kit filled with packets of activities for the evening.
- Begin the warm up with 'Do it like the Astronauts' dance. A set of steps like the moon walk with fun music to be copied by our little guests. Expecting this round to get them all charged up!
DIY 'Alien in my spaceship' Moon rock relay, a game where our little friends use tongs to transfer moon rocks (made out of crushed newspaper balls layered with silver foil) from point-A to point-B. Tough enough but has a fun element attached!- DIY 'Alien in my spaceship', an activity where the little guests make their own customised spaceship with an alien riding it. A little goody that they take back after the party and something that keeps them intrigued.
- DIY 'Space Globe', again an activity where they build their little glitterful space globe with big and small stars that they can keep by their bedside. A fun gazing goody that they carry back from Lil A's b'day bash.
- Finally time for more goodies with the asteroid game. A sort of musical arms game where the arm gets replaced by a huge parcel of silver asteroid. Everytime the music stops the player holding the parcel needs to open up the layer of foil which returns a little goody for their goody bag. Once they have the goody the player exits. By the end of the game the last participant gets a goody and in the process the entire layered asteroid gets demolished.
- We'll cut the cake and serve the snacks.
- Finally, it will be time for the 'khoi bag' fun.
- Lastly, handout the most researched and finalised return gift- Roaring Rockets written by Tony Mitton & Ant Parker. I ordered it on Flipkart.com 5 weeks prior to the date of the party especially since it was the international version and required 25 working days for delivery. Was one of the most fretting activities during the planning phase!
Now that the overall entertainment list was sorted it boiled down to the food menu. Since there was enough jamboree happening at the entertainment bit I thought we should keep the food simple yet fun. So this is what we did:
- Pasta in Tomato & Basil Sauce
- Coriander chutney sandwich
- Chicken Coleslaw Sandwich
- Cucumber & Carrot sticks with hung yogurt dip
- Lots of fun chocolates filled in a deep bowl
Simultaneously I worked on getting the decorations in place. Custom designed the planets & stars for the decoration. Outsourced the balloon decor to a friends resource (They did a fabulous job. Had the planets, stars and balloons in place within a couple of hours).
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| Glittering Stars (hanging from the ceiling) |
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| Rocket soaring in space |
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| Glorious Sun peeks amidst the stars |
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| Saturn creates a prominent space like image! |
The most memorable part was getting the astronaut kits in place. My sisters, brother in law, husband and Lil A helped get it all sorted. Here are some pictures of our work of art!
Finally, we were ready and set to celebrate Lil A's 3rd birthday in full steam! Was not a very easy task but when I sit back and re-live those moments it gives me the rush...!!!
Not sure if I'd attempt another one of these with as much detailing but given that almost all kids had a gala time I may just have a change of heart next year! :) You'd need to be really patient to read through this long post. Thanks for spending your time reading through our madness!
In case you'd want to know, the 'planning+part execution' phase lasted for almost 6 week! :)
