Usually Kye and I have a birthday theme in mind long, long before his birthday. He has said for quite some time now that when he turned 5 he wanted to have a Lightning McQueen party. So that was our plan! Then…we decided to do Disney for Kye’s birthday instead. That meant, for the first time ever, he wouldn’t have a big birthday party. I made sure he understood all of this and he was totally fine with it!
Even though we didn’t have a BIG party…we did have a family-only get together to celebrate Kye’s special day! I also wanted to make sure to still do some of the things i’d normally do for his birthday. We still sent out invitations, even though it was only to our close family. Since I was going the cheap/easy route for this party (our birthday budget was SPENT at Disney!) Kye helped me put together the invites ourselves. He loved getting to make each one special 🙂
The party was Saturday afternoon on March 8th. I did another thing different from the norm and I actually hardcore cleaned my house the day prior. Everything was 100% ready for the party on Friday and it worked out GREAT. I was exhausted Friday but felt more energized for Saturday rather than cleaning all Saturday morning and being worn out for his party. In order to keep the house clean and in party-ready condition I took the kids out that morning prior to naps! We met up with Casey and Jordan (Zach was golfing) at the Azalea Festival.
I am just NOT a festival person. A lot of people love them, I just don’t. We pretty much bi-passed the entire thing and headed straight for the playground haha. I let the kids play and visited with friends who were also taking the playground route.
Once the kids had their fun we loaded up and went out to lunch! And DUH we hit up Chicken Salad Chick 🙂 Jordan hadn’t ever been and I don’t think Kye had either? Usually it’s our girl time place to go 🙂 I did a totally non-Emily thing (confession: I might have been a tad bitter about the golf that morning…) and let the kids each get a kid’s meal. And it was just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread. Probably the first time they’d ever had white bread? It was also Britt’s first time ever having a juice box. It shocked me but she didn’t even like it at all!!! We lived it up and enjoyed our special lunch!
The invites let everyone know to come over around 4:30 and that the party would last until whenever! I wanted to keep it super casual and all about Kye. He planned out the “events” of the party and picked out his cake, ice cream, and what we had for dinner. I did still do a birthday banner for him as well as his birthday video slideshow.
I got a great deal on the printable pack for the banner…only $6 from here!
Even though it was a casual, family-only party…I still did themed party plates and such too!
I even found these Cars sticker packs on clearance at Hobby Lobby for $1 each!
And we always do a birthday balloon for the kids on their birthdays so this year was no different 🙂
While the little things did NOT cost a lot of money to have for the party…the food did. I didn’t have the party in any kind of special budget because I didn’t plan on it costing a lot. But when I took Kye to Publix to pick out his cake I was in SHOCK at the price. $30 for this!?!?! I know people do Publix cakes all the time…it was our first time getting one and will probably be the last. I mean that’s crazy expensive to me! If we ever do a family-only party again, we will probably be doing cupcakes 🙂
He was SO excited and LOVED the birthday slideshow! I think this was the first year that he really, truly was hardcore pumped for his party and truly appreciated every detail and enjoyed every photo on the slideshow!
Since everyone came over prior to dinner time we let the kids play and the adults mingled. I got out all of Kye’s Cars stuff for the kids to enjoy and it was funny because Britt sat and played SO contently with his cars. While the older kids all went upstairs to play in the playroom…she was totally happy to just stay in the living room with those cars. I think it was because she’s not used to Kye letting her play with his stuff like that haha. Mema was there also and Mema is like Britt’s fav person ever so she was pretty much in Heaven 🙂
Playroom time!
These silly boys had a blast!
I have 100% zero regrets about doing Disney and a small family party over doing our typical themed-to-the-max-hardcore party. If Zach was down for it, I’d do it this way every single time. And I think that Kye would agree. He really did have THE BEST birthday EVER. I love, love, love these pictures and how they just show his true happiness. You can tell in every picture I took during our little party that Kye was just SO joyful!
Best Buddies!
If we do get to do the Disney/small party combo again then I will plan better financially for it. I should have left some money in the birthday budget for the small party. You think small and you think like 10 people. But not with our crew! We ONLY invited the “small Parker” group. G-Mama, Big Papa, Aunt Courtney, Uncle Brad, Colt, Payton, Casey, Jordan, Mema, Little Mama, and Jolee (Trey and Big Daddy were also invited but didn’t come). Plus our four makes it 15 people!!!! That is a LOT of mouths to feed and the pizza cost us a good chunk of change (and it ALL got eaten!). So if we do this again I will budget $50 for the small family party and will NOT be doing the themed birthday cake for it 🙂 The kids love to help in the kitchen and I’m sure Kye would have had a blast making some Lightning McQueen cupcakes over the cake we had. But the pizza will totally happen again…it’s the best way to feed a large group and who doesn’t love Little Ceasars?
Zach takes his happy birthday singing and cake delivering VERY seriously!
Present time!
Thanks Grandpa and Grammie!
While I think the family only party thing was great, and Kye didn’t mind not having his friends there at all (I mean Colt and Payton are his favorite friends so he was satisfied), I was a little bummed that MY friends weren’t there haha. Robyn and I especially have always gone to each other’s kids parties and this was the first party to break that cycle. She was SO sweet to still send him a gift!!!
Colt is Britt’s favorite…so sweet!
It was really SUCH a fun night with everyone. We were just all very relaxed and enjoyed our time together. Mr. Rusty was cracking us UP because he kept taking pictures which has NEVER happened before. And then he even had Courtney teach him how to post on Facebook. So, so classic.
Mr. Rusty’s first ever Facebook photo post hahaha feel special Brad 🙂
Here are the others he posted from the party:
For his birthday Zach and I had given Kye several of the Imaginext castle toys that all go together. I’d gotten them on a super coupon deal before Christmas and he loved them SO much that I suggested to G-Mama for her to get him the big castle and more accessories. He was SO PUMPED!
He also REALLY loves to make big cities with his wooden trains so more pieces was a great gift! He told me the main thing he wanted for his birthday was “castle guys and choo choo stuff”
He hadn’t ever seen a $10 bill before haha! He said “thanks for the dollar” 😉
Kye’s plan for the party was to play in the playroom, eat pizza, eat cake and ice cream, open presents, then everyone “chill for awhile” and watch Cars the movie. So that’s exactly what we did!
Payton looks concerned haha
We really had such a wonderful time! While I do LOVE to throw a themed party, Disney trumps everything and I would be totally happy to do this kind of thing again and again…we just have to get Zach on board 😉
As always we measure the kids in our laundry room doorway each year on their birthday to see their growth. Check out that HUGE growth spurt Mr. Kye went through!!! So thankful 🙂
Later that month we had ONE last celebration for Kye’s special day (I mean how many celebrations does a kid need…right?!?!). At his school this year they do a monthly birthday celebration for all the kids who have a birthday that month. All the parents bring certain items for the class party. Britt and I got there a little early and she did SO great participating in some of the class activities. It was a good mini-trial run for her for the fall! I def think she’s ready! Kye loved showing her off to everyone and always takes such good care of her.
The March Birthdays!
Ready to party!!!
Zach even surprised us and was able to come too!!! He came to Kye’s classroom party last year as well. While I was super glad he could come…I did tell him that he will have to make sure to attend all the other kid’s too now haha!
I am so thankful everything went as well as it did for Kye’s 5th birthday! 5 is a pretty big deal and I know he felt very special and well celebrated! 🙂
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