HRM Parent Blog

It seems appropriate to post this reptilian party when Little Ray's Reptile Zoo is in town for the weekend . While the zoo isn't here in Halifax all year round, some of their slithery friends are always available for birthday parties in the HRM. My reptile loving son was delighted at the idea of a SNAKE BIRTHDAY!!! even if nobody else in the family was enthusiastic at the idea of snakes, scorpions and spiders temporarily (we hoped!) taking over the living room.

The party was a huge hit with all the kids and the staff from Ray's Reptiles did a great job with the kids, making sure that everyone was safe while still getting a chance to be up close and personal with some of these fascinating creatures. Many parents were surprised to find themselves lining up just as eagerly as the 5-year-olds to get a chance to hold and touch.

I doubt that it will be the last time that we have Ray's Reptiles in the house and we'll definitely be down at Exhibition Park this weekend to see some of the non-house sized specimens!

The treat table, the snake cake was made with a bundt cake cut in half and a fruit leather tongue.

The kids happily slurped down "swamp water", more enthusiastically than they would have plain water ;) The personal size veggies and dip were also fun and less messy in a crowd.

The grape gobbling frog

Out comes the spider!

The kids all learned where each animal was from on the world map.

Lots of different textures to check out!

 Unless you'd rather just stay safe with mom!

"Let's Paint! " my daughter cheered as the plan for her 5^th birthday a few weeks ago. She's always been a big fan of the Clay Café so it was a pretty easy choice to have it there, despite all the fun ideas I had for hosting it at home.

Making the invitations was a family affair.  We all had fun painting paper using lots of different colours and when it was dry we attached another piece of paper with the party details that we printed out on the computer.

 

 

Colour was the focus of our snack choices with fruit, veggies, cheese, and of course some smarties, that we displayed in painters palates on each of the tables. 

 

The cake was made from a slab cake cut into the shape of a palate.  We used gel icing for the paint colours and a breadstick with a dollop of fondant on the end to make the brush.  

 

We also put together these little packages of a palate of paint and a canvas for each guest to take home after the party since their painted clay pieces had to go in the oven before they could be brought home.

My daughter's comment on her way to bed that night? "It was so fun to paint with my friends today, I love them all and I love you, Mommy" You just can't beat that!!

My youngest daughter just celebrated her 3rd birthday and it was one of the easiest parties we’ve had so far.  We offered up lots of ideas - a princess theme, a Dora party, tea party, barbie, teddy bear picnic the list goes on.  She said no to all of it.  Instead, she asked for a “red” party.  Red, red, red...was all she wanted.  Which is not surprising since it's her absolute favourite color.  A near obsession really, since she’s currently on the search for a red cereal, red soap for the tub and red pajamas for her doll.

Believe it or not, our whole family had fun coming up with all the red things we could think of.  My older daughter was on mission to come up with as many red things as she could and would catch us off guard a few times as she shouted “licorice” from the back seat of the car, or whispered  “pomegranate” from her bed one evening.  It was definitely a family affair.

The whole thing was pretty simple in the end. Granted we chose to have it at the Funzone at Dalplex, but as for the party side, we served a load of red snacks and drinks including: mini-jello cups (which the parents enjoyed just as much as the kids!), babybel cheeses cut into fun shapes and faces and of course a red cake. 

I attempted to make red candy apples as a loot bag but, let’s just say that was a bust…so we found these at the dollar store and filled them with a pack of popcorn, a red juice box, red napkin and a few other red snacks.

We also had all her guests wear something red and one of her friends even gave her a couple of red themed books which we've been reading every night since! 

 

Everyone had a great time and many of the parents agreed that a simple “colour” theme makes for a fast and easy party that’s still lots of fun!

Now my older daughter wants a “pink” party for her birthday in December – gotta love it!

 

We love hearing from you and always love content for our blog.  If you have a party or family celebration you want to share in our Let's Party blog, send some photos and a write-up of the party details to sarah@hrmparent.ca and we'll feature it in an upcoming blog.

We love any kind of party, but who’s kidding who…a Halloween party is among the most fun!  Planning, decorating and preparing are just as exciting as the costumes and party time.   There are so many great sites and resources for ideas, recipes and décor that’s it’s almost overwhelming to know where to start. 

Fear no more – thanks to the team at babble.com who have pulled together a fantastic collection of all the things you need to know to host a spooktacular Halloween party.

From handmade costume ideas and do-it-yourself decorations to spooky owl invites and a really easy pumpkin veggie try.

Even if you weren’t planning for a party this year, we’re guessing you’ll want to after seeing some of these great ideas.

Happy Planning!

Before you read this, I want you to know I’m definitely not one of those crazy party mamas that you see on TLC. In fact, I pushed hard for this to be a straight up princess party or even a fancy tea party….but clearly lost out on that.  

So…just in case I’m not the only one with a little diva who’s seriously wedding obsessed, I thought it would be fun to share some of the details of my daughter's wedding themed 4th birthday party last year.

We printed the invitations on small pink paper in a fancy font and glued them to a slightly bigger piece of black paper.   We used traditional wedding wording (i.e. the honour of your presence…) and encouraged everyone to wear fancy clothes.

Pink and black decorations were a combination of clearance rack fabric for the table cloths, and leftover tulle from a friend’s wedding, balloons, fresh flowers from the grocery store and tissue paper pom-poms that we had lots of fun making.

          

 

We made veils for the girls by hot-gluing tulle to pearl hair-bands from the dollar store.  Black felt was used to cut out neck ties for the boys (although lots of them wore their own bow-ties) and we had stickers and sequins for all the kids to decorate their wedding accessories.

 

We had the party in early January, so managed to find some fun photo snow globes from the discounted holiday section of the Superstore and had our daughter write a note to include inside each one as a giveaway for each guest.

 

We bought a frame with a thick mat boarder for the guests to sign, which they loved doing.  A group shot from the party has since been put in the frame and it looks so cute on my daughter’s bedroom wall.

Food was kept pretty simple with mini-platters of finger-food for each table and a tiered plate of mini-cupcakes with pink icing and black sprinkles.

 

We played a few games but the majority of the time was spent on the dance floor, which even included a spontaneous dance of the bride and groom.  Oh my!

 

All in all, it was a great party and our little darling was a blushing bride for the whole time, which was well worth every moment.