Setting up a birthday party is a hassle even when you’re an adult, and we all know that our parties usually only require an open tab at a bar to get started. However, when it comes down to our youngest, a lot more preparation is in order: if we look back, we can remember how birthday parties were a big deal when we were their age. This is crucial to understanding their hype when a birthday party is concerned and also to our own understanding of what will make that day memorable…at least until the following year and the next birthday.

Get a theme going

First and foremost, figuring out what theme to go for will be the most trying, yet the most rewarding of challenges we’ll face as adults. Simply put, we’ll have to get our hands dirty and look into our children’s lives to find out what’s currently popular. Now, this does not mean that anything can fit into the party mold, so our choice has to be something popular enough to work without requiring too much effort to get going. This can also be a good reflection of our child’s likes and desires, i.e. a dinosaur-themed party or a keeping-the-parents-awake-until-2AM-themed party. Jokes aside, take the time, do your homework.

With the correct theme chosen, double-check it with your little tyke to see if he/she’s up for something like that, after all, it’s his/her day. Surprisingly enough, they can give us the most insight into what could work great for the party, we just have to filter out all the nonsense that will come along with it. Naturally, we won’t be able to dig out a swimming pool in the living room, but we might be able to make certain fizzy drinks happen or devise a dress code for the guests that would come over.

Set up a budget

With ideas as crazy as these in the works, it’s wise to sit down with your significant other and figure out just what kind of budget you’re dealing with. Any sort of investment will end up putting a dent in our wallets, there’s no way around it – we just have to figure out how big of a dent we want. This will both help us set up boundaries in terms of what we can get and at what price, but will also spark a bit of creativity on our side to make some ideas work despite not being within our planned budget.

When setting up a budget, the easiest way to honor it is to avoid inviting a lot of kids. Truth be told, as much fun as they can be, even one kid can be a handful at times – now imagine having 20-30 of them running around. A good rule of thumb is to never invite more than a dozen, it helps your kid include enough friends to have fun while not forcing you to turn your house into Disneyworld for the duration of the party. Fewer attendees mean fewer costs across the board and also guarantees better quality for those that do get invited.

Make it memorable

Now that you’ve set up a theme and figured out how much you can spend – it’s time to take a nice hard look at what will make the party stand out. The easiest way to handle entertainment is to essentially buy into the whole idea of having a bouncy house or something and to let the kids zone out. However, a much more practical way of handling it would be getting something new and fresh for them to deal with, making the party really stand out. This is where things like PhotoBoothMe photobooths or DIY cake making games could seal the deal.

Kids like taking photos, even more so with the spread of smartphones into every nook and cranny of our lives. This is why having a photo booth for them to take shots with silly faces will make them have fun and provide a nice reminder of the good time they had. Similarly, having a DIY cake making game or basically, anything they can eat will get their creative juices going and will inspire some insane combos that they can try and experiment with like the fabled jam and chocolate chicken sandwich.

Join in the fun

With all of this time spent on planning the party, make sure to leave a little of it for yourself or any other parents that might decide to stick around during the festivities. We were all kids once, hell, to be perfectly honest – we still are. There is no harm in joining in the fun as long as the kids are okay with it, if you see them start to pull back, it’s time to get out of there – otherwise, go nuts. With a proper theme, no money problems and more than enough silly party games to keep everyone entertained, we’re left with just one more item on our checklist – have fun.

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