Birthday celebration for a 6-year-old

 

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After …

… 3 parties
… 47 cupcakes
… 6 golden candles
… 11 amazing presents
… 14 dancing girls
… 1 limbo competition
… 1 visit to Central Park Zoo
… 5 hungry sheep
… 3 birthday songs
… 20 cups of coffee (or was it even more?)
… 1 huge 3-layer cake
… 1000 pieces of confetti

… And a lot of smiles, kisses, hugs and thank you’s, we are finally done celebrating my eldest daughter’s 6th birthday. Last year we kept her birthday celebration low-key, so there was never any doubt that this year we would go all in with 3 different parties and more cupcakes than even a cupcake monster could eat.

The first party was held on the day of her birthday, with immediate family and her grandparents visiting from Denmark. The day was spent eating pancakes, visiting Central Park Zoo (if you ever end up in New York with small kids and nothing to do go here. It is small but cute and definitely worth a visit), blowing out candles, eating cake and opening presents.

The following day she celebrated at school with 26 home made cat themed cupcakes, story time and birthday songs.

The last party was the one that meant the most to Eleanor. Together with her best friend she invited all the girls from her class for a two hour party at a very cute kids’ place one block from our house. With a great hostess, even more cupcakes, sweets and a few carrot sticks the girls spent two hours having plenty of fun and playing party games. From earlier experience, I have learnt that both adults and the kids will have the best party if most of time is spent playing games arranged in advance. Free play is great but can be very chaotic with a lot of kids, and can easily end up in tears.

Here’s a short list of some games we played at Eleanor’s birthday parties through the years :

– Candy bingo – instead of using the normal checker, use small pieces of candy.

– Limbo dance. This can be done with nothing but a skipping rope and some music.

– Freeze dance / musical statues.

– Hidden treasure. A good old treasure hunt can make even grown-ups excited.

– Sticker decorations. When Eleanor turned 3 we did a fairy theme party. All the kids got a homemade crown and magic wand that they then had to decorate with a lot of different stickers.

– Repeat the word.  You probably played it as a kid yourself. It is the one where the kids sit in a circle and whisper a sentence to the child next to them. The fun happens when the 1st kid tells the rest what the sentence started out as.

– Pin the tail on the donkey (or pin the braid on Elsa.)

And one last tip. It’s always difficult to get the attention of 15 children who are on a sugar rush. Instead of yelling, try these lines “If you can hear me, touch your nose.” “If you can hear me spin around.”  “If you can hear me touch your ears.” ” If you can hear me, sit down and be quiet.” It worked on 12 6-year-old girls yesterday.