Anyone who has children knows how expensive birthday parties can get, but we all do it to see that look of joy and excitement on their face year after year. My daughter is four years old and we had a small birthday party at home for her first, went all out of her second, didn't have a party for her third, and went back to the small party at home for her fourth birthday. Because we went overboard for her second birthday, we had already decided that we wouldn't do it again and for her third we took her to the pumpkin patch and went on a hay ride and in the corn maze. She had the time of her life and talked about the pumpkin patch all year! This let us know that she really doesn't care about a big party, she just wants to have fun. So for her fourth, we asked her what she wanted to do and she requested a party so we told her we would have one but not anything big.
She decided on a Doc McStuffins theme and because this character is still fairly new, there wasn't much I could find in terms of decorations and favors that were a decent price. So I got to work and decided I would make the things myself. For starters, her outfit was first on the list as we always get her a personalized birthday shirt and I always make a tutu for her to wear.
I was able to find her a really cheap stethoscope on amazon and got a little boys white button up shirt from the thrift store for her "lab coat".
For her favors I bought the items from the Dollar Tree, Target, the cups from Oriental Trading and got the bags (in sets of 5) from Hobby Lobby (using the 40% coupon).
I was able to get the crayons from an after school sale at Target for about $0.12 each and got the notebooks from the Dollar Tree. They had a flower design on the front and came 4 in a pack for $1. To personalize it, I simply found a Doc McStuffins picture online and put Amaya's name on it and printed them out on my home printer and glued them to the front. The cups from Oriental Trading had pictures in them that the kids can color and reinsert in the cup. I removed those and added it in their bag and found another Doc McStuffins picture online and put each child's name on it to make it special for them. Along with these items I added in some fruit snacks, a toy, and some candy.
For her cake, we skipped the traditional sheet cake and I made some ice cream cone cupcakes and traditional cupcakes.
Again, I personalized these as well and made these little circle cupcake toppers. I simply printed these out and attached them to toothpicks and inserted into the cupcakes. The ice cream cone cupcakes were a big hit and made for easy cleanup when I just added a scoop of ice cream on top of it. These only costs me about $2 for ice cream cones, $2 for confetti cake mix, and $2 for frosting!
Amaya is really big on painting, drawing, and coloring these days so I thought this would be a perfect activity for kids. I took my dining room furniture out and used this area as our craft center.
I printed some Doc McStuffins pictures off the internet so they could use them to color or paint. I had markers, crayons, glitter pens, and paint (everything washable of course). But I threw down some old pillows and a comforter for them to sit on and let them go at it. This was a big hit as well and the kids loved making their pictures and being able to take them home after. On my floor, I simply bought a white, plastic tablecloth from the Dollar Tree and taped it down. After they were done, I was able to pick everything up in the tablecloth and put it in the trash.
Although I had to purchase all of the little things to pull this party off, it was still fairly inexpensive and easy to pull off. It just goes to show that you don't have to spend a lot of money for the kids to have a great time!
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