Dinosaur Party

Evan had a very brief interest in Dinosaurs, and it happened to fall around this time.  I was lucky enough to start planning early enough, and grabbed a bunch of white easter eggs during the holiday.  We had several activities and a pinata.  It was a Roaring good time.

We had several really little ones at this event, so I had some coloring sheets out for them to stay busy with if they got bored.

 The party favor was a paper mache Dino egg filled with Easter basket grass, a Smarties, Dum Dum sucker, Dino fruit snack, plastic dinosaur, and box of Dinosaur Crayola Crayons.  I used small balloons to make the egg and only mached up halfway.  Once they were dry the balloon peeled out and I cut the edges to look cracked. Then I painted the eggs an off white and sponged them with two different browns for speckles.  To make the paper mache I mix flour and water until it is the consistency of oatmeal.  Then I add a good amount of school glue to it.  if it does not spread easily it is too thick.  They smell pretty bad until you paint them- Fyi.

I love to make a memory board with pictures from the past year.  I find my kids really enjoy seeing what they have done.  A great trick to minimize wandering in your house and mess ALL OVER...find a creative way to block the stairs.  

The food for this party was over board big time, but it was so much fun to play with the names!  I found so many ideas online and just could not choose...plus I love chocolate doughnuts...and any excuse for chocolate doughnuts. lol

 We started the party with an easy activity parents and kids to create on their own while I greeted guests and took some pictures.  I think an quick easy activity like this makes for a much less stressful beginning for the host.  I used their names to create Dino names and it was fun to see them find their own.  ie: Amyossaurus (Amy), Jeffodactyl (Jeff)

I prepared some bags with the kiddos names and a cute Dino stamp for our Dino Egg Game.  We had two Mama Dinos that had all of their eggs stolen from their nests (Two large paper bags with the tops rolled down.) and scattered all over Jurassic Park.  The kids had to avoid the two T-Rexes that were loose while gathering up and returned the eggs to their moms.  The team with the most eggs in their nests won.

Because the kids were so young their was no penalty for the T-Rex getting you.  It was just in good fun.

No Dinosaur Party would be complete without a Dig.  So I buried tons of little Dinos and Plastic Bones from a Dino Sandbox mold kit I found at H-E-B.  I scattered some shovels and little rakes.  It actually took them a while to find it all.  maybe because my husband built the coolest most ginormous sandbox in the neighborhood. hahaha

We had a pinata, because once your child experiences it...well there is no option not to have one.  It is all about the candy. hahaha

The last activity was to watch a volcano erupt.  I had told the kids at the very beginning that we were going to observe this and they could not wait.  My advice...practice it several times first.  I think I might have experimented with different methods too.  It was a slow going process that resulted in an oozing of sorts.  Not the most thrilling culmination of events.  Luckily the kids did not seem to notice the scrambling and effort it took to get even a dribble out of it. lolol  Maybe next time we will stick a Soda bottle under it and throw in a Mentos. hahahaha