Dinosaur Birthday Party

Palm trees, bananas and leaves from my 2009 baby shower!

Not quite a month after the party, I'm finally getting around to posting about it. I had so much fun gathering ideas and planning the party. The absolute best decision I made was planning to have it at the Gym. We love "My Gym" - Bubba has so much fun every time he's there. The people who work there are great and help the kids have fun in a safe environment.  Having the party at the gym allowed me to spend all of my time on the fun stuff and not worry about cleaning or any of the yucky stuff.

T-Rex Track Cookies

Brontosaurus Bites

Dino Bones (Dino Treasure Stones in back)

Cretaceous (Pop)Corn

As I've already discussed in previous posts, I made quite a few dinosaur themed snacks as well as the dinosaur treasure stones I used for decoration. Since Bubba likes cupcakes more than cake, I made some of those too (with dino cupcake liners and cute dinosaur toppers). I also dove deep into my closet and pulled out the box of baby shower decorations my sister made for me back in 2009. She made such amazing safari themed decorations that I also used them for Bubba's 1st birthday. I decided the palm trees (made out of organic diapers and ribbon), bananas (diapers and washcloths) and a few other things would be the perfect "icing on the cake" for the dinosaur theme. I would have liked to have printed the names of everything on the little signs but I ran out of time. I figured hand writing them was better than nothing because I really wanted each snack to have a little sign. Having dinosaur themed names for the food was part of the fun, at least for me...

We were not allowed to show up more than 10 minutes prior to our start time so I was a little worried about getting everything set up and ready before people arrived. I drew up a plan of where I wanted everything so my husband and the My Gym teachers could help. When we got there, they already had the yellow tablecloth on the counter and were ready to help. Having the plan in writing really helped a lot because I didn't have to explain what I wanted.

Stegosaurus Eggs (Oreo Truffles)

We got everything set up before the first people showed up. I didn't get really great pictures because the two different people I thought would be there and be able to take pictures weren't able to make it. I think you'll still be able to see how great it turned out though...

It was very gratifying to see everyone having such a great time and enjoying all the snacks. One of the teachers even said it was the best party she's ever seen. I'm pretty sure she's only been there for a few months, but I'll still take the compliment. :)

The best part? After playing with and entertaining the kids for over an hour, the teachers did almost all of the clean up! I just had to gather whatever I wanted to take home and put it back in my handy dandy plastic bin. Then we just went home and relaxed.

One of the other "extras"was to get Bubba a birthday shirt. I found what I thought would be perfect on Etsy. His favorite color is black and his favorite dinosaur (at the time) was a stegosaurus...they made it look really great and got it to me super fast. I was going to post a picture but since the shirt has his name on it (and he's wearing it) and I'm trying to keep at least some things private, I decided not to...trust me though, it's really cute.

Sorry the pictures are kind of wacky, I've spent over 30 minutes trying to get them to look normal but it's just not working. At least I have some to show you - better than nothing, right?