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Planning a Fire Truck or Firefighter Birthday Party: Games

fire life, Living Life, Parenting 7 Responses »

Nov 102010

This week I’ll be giving you insight into how to plan a fire truck or firefighter themed birthday party. You know, since I am.

I hate birthday party games. And shower games. I also hate Candy Land. I’m a party pooper. Sue me. That said, we will be playing two semi-tolerable games at our fire truck birthday party.

Pin the Tail on the Dalmatian

I thought I was super smart in coming up with this idea. Turns out I wasn’t. It’s on every fire truck, fire engine, firefighter and random dog birthday party game idea list ever written. However, it’s still a cute idea. And because it’s a) easy, b) cute and c) not overly annoying, we’re doing it.

I got the template for the dalmatian body and tails from Birthday In a Box (both .pdf files). I printed them out on our printer. Because I printed on flimsy regular paper, I glued them to foam (craft store), cut them out and now they’re studier. In fact, I think we’ll save this for future use. I don’t know if we’ll have another fire truck party as I feel my days of helping choose themes are drawing to a quick and emotional end, but hey, someone I know is getting a fire truck bedroom overhaul for Christmas. Instant wall art.

To play the game, we’ll put fire dog ears (oh yeah) on the child who is taking his/her turn, blindfold them, spin them around a few times and push them (gently) in the direction of the dog’s butt. Cue parental amusement. Winner is obviously the closest to where the tail actually goes.

Find the Fire Hydrant

Cut out fire hydrants on red (or yellow or whatever color you choose) construction paper. (Here’s a .pdf template.)Before the guests arrive, place them all over your party space. Have them line the walkway or stairway into the house or party area. Place them under tables, in easy-to-find hiding spots and in a couple higher spots for any older children.

To start the game, explain that when there is a fire, firefighters have to find a fire hydrant to hook up the hose in order to get water to put out the fire. I may cue them to make fire sirens while they are on their hunt because it will make for a good video even if I’ll be deaf for two days. Pairing up older children with the youngest will assure that everyone gets at least one fire hydrant. (Cut out three to four times the number of fire hydrants to children attending.) The winner is the one with the most fire hydrants.

As an aside, I swiped and changed this idea from a friend who did this game with bananas for her daughter’s monkey party. Kudos to one of the many Mandys in my life.

And that’s it. That’s all I can handle. We’ll all be deaf after the fire hydrant game anyway, so that should probably be the end of it.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about gift bags for guests. Which probably means I should make final decisions on that and, you know, order things. Oops again.

Planning a Fire Truck or Firefighter Birthday Party: Decorations

fire life, Living Life, Parenting 1 Response »

Nov 092010

This week I’ll be giving you insight into how to plan a fire truck or firefighter themed birthday party. You know, since I am.

I’ve got to admit, I haven’t actually made this purchase yet. I’m busy talking with the person who owns the design I want to use, which you’ll see at the end of this post. I’ll buy it when we get something figured out — remember, this party is for two boys, not one. However, these are some of the decorations that I considered.

I hit Etsy first, of course. I loved this fire truck Happy Birthday Banner and associated accessories.

Toadally Cute’s shop has a bunch of amazing decorations, and I loved the colors in this fire truck set. The light yellow and the blue with the red are almost what I was looking for, and I loved the scalloped edges. Her matching cupcake toppers were cute. We don’t really “do” bottled water, but she even has labels for that! I loved how everything was light and fun and went together so well.

Next I found a “printable” set of firefighter decorations with red, yellow black and white fire decor.

This set is bright and fun too! In fact, it’s even a little brighter! For those unfamiliar with printables, you receive an email with the .pdf file and can print out as many or as few of whatever you like. It works for people with good printers (me!) who have a little extra time (hmm) and who have huge families and lots of birthday party attendees (me!). We did a printable gift for FireDad this past Father’s Day. Anyway, this big set ($49) comes with everything you need. From the inivitations (oh, don’t need those) to the banner to a sign for the door and so on. In fact, one of the only reasons that I didn’t choose this particular set was because it had more than I needed. But Shindigsparties‘ has amazing sets.

I went off Etsy to look at what the mainstream options were. My mistake. Of the few options out there, this fire truck set was the only one I could tolerate.

It’s a little much, no? While I love bright stuff, it’s just a little overwhelming. I don’t hate it though. And if I went to a party where this theme was taking place, I’d just put on some shades and stand next to the punch bowl for awhile. With a flask. Maybe a firefighter flask!

In the end, I decided to go with a printable theme on Etsy that was a bit more simple. Tom Kat Studio came through for me.

I convoed the designer to ask if on the cupcake pics if we could have the boys’ names instead of initials. She was very accommodating and polite and generally awesome, especially considering her main designer was out of town. I honestly love the simplicity of this fire truck birthday set — white, black and red, vintage truck, simple lines. I will be pairing it with some baby blue streamers to go with the Meri Meri cupcake holders. And really, I like baby blue better than yellow anyway. No shades needed.

For “extras” at the party, we’ll be throwing in some of the following: silver/white and red fire truck balloons, some other red balloons, two big Mylar fire truck balloons (as LittleBrother specifically asked for a fire truck balloon for his birthday), red, white, black and light blue streamers, red plates and cups and such, and confetti … if I can find some metallic confetti like this that isn’t located in the UK.

And, voila! Party-for-less. As we always have more than eight people, we can’t just buy a “party in a box” for eight. It doesn’t work. I like the idea of printing (and keeping) decorations. It saves me money and doesn’t hurt my eyes. Win-win.

If you’re looking for fire truck birthday invitations, I wrote about those yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll be writing about my least favorite part of a birthday party: games. Yay…

[Disclaimer: I will be paying for the decorations I order. I accepted no compensation for linking to other decorations. This is pure opinion up in this piece.]