Hellobee Boards

There was a hot dog vendor, rented animals, a dessert bar, a bounce house and booze for parents!

Most of the kid parties we've been to have been at the birthday factories (indoor playgrounds with pizza and cake). I liked WJ's 1st birthday party that we threw at our favorite upscale Chinese restaurant because everyone got to eat at the lunch buffet and their food is SO GOOD. His 2nd birthday party we did at our house with a baseball theme. That experience made me appreciate the birthday factories because it made me realize that kids, especially the older ones, just need a place to run around and burn off their energy. So we did his 3rd birthday party at one of these places and it was awesome. No work for us, just show up and pay the people. The only thing I didn't like was not being able to bring our own cake (we like to get our cakes from the same bakery for all occasions) but the venue's pizza and cake were actually really good. So I can't complain!

Not to toot our own horn, but I thought LO's first birthday was pretty great. We needed more space than we have at home so we did it at a park. It was a carnival theme so we had some games (for adults and kids), sporty activities, a concession stand, a dessert stand, lots of food, face painting, balloon animals, and it was all next to a great playground. We got really good feedback from everyone about it all.