Tag Archive for party decorations

Planning a Party – Facebook Style

checklistFor the past two weeks the ladies/girls (sorry twenty something’s you will always be my girls, even though I know you are fine young ladies) in our family have been planning my brother’s fiftieth birthday party.  It has been such a fun  time.

First I need to give you a little back story.  The ladies/girls in our family have a private group on Facebook.  We call it Renee’s Revelers.  Girls only, no boys allowed.  We use this page to encourage one another, vent about life, and just generally have lots of chatty, girly fun.

So this turned out to be a perfect location to do our private party planning so my brother could not find out what we were up to.  Tee-Hee!

My role for this party was Project Manager.  Once we had decided on a date, and the theme it was time for the brainstorming to begin.  There were separate posts on our page for decoration ideas, food ideas, and  entertainment.  I will be the first to admit that the threads of comments got a little crazy after the first couple of days, and it got kind of crazy to follow.  The other girls will attest to this too.

Then I plowed through all of the comments and made a to-do list, and a who’s doing what list.  That was a Word document, and it got posted back to the Renee’s Reveler’s group so everyone would have an easy read of what was happening.  Also that way I could have an accurate checklist to keep us all in line and on track.  This was a really fun way for my sister in Montana to stay connected with what we were planning, and throw in her two cents.

The other fun project that evolved on the girls page for this party was photo posting.  My sister was putting together a DVD montage for my brother to document his first 50 years here on planet earth.  We used the Reveler’s group to post pictures for my sister to download and add to her collection.  She would let us know a specific time period she needed a picture from, and the research group( i did not do much picture hunting) would peruse their photos and post it for her.

We had a great afternoon of making party decorations together once all of the to-do’s were in place.  The group effort by the ladies/girls was tremendous.

We had such fun we’re looking for our next project to plan together!  The party planning and decoration creation, and food planning was a great success.  More on the party later.

How did your last big party planning go?

Does your family have any birthday traditions?

I am a traditionalist.  I love traditions, and creating memories for family members.  There are a  few birthday traditions that we have so much fun with I thought I should share them with you. 

The traditions that go with the birthdays at our house are numerous and fun.  We try to have a theme for the birthday parties, whether you are young or old.  Iron Man, Batman, Transformers are some of the recent favorites.  My oldest son works at Party City so we get great discounts on the party decorations.  This makes for lots of fun decorating the house, which is at the top of my “I love to do this” list.  We always hang up some sort of “Happy Birthday” banner.  Last summer Evan and I made a pretty cool birthday banner that had lots of construction paper and glitter.  We are still using this one for some of the birthday celebrations.  Once in a while we get some funky birthday hats to wear.  This is mostly for the girls in the family.  Lots of fun to wear a crown and be the queen for the day.  Oh wait that’s right I’m the queen of my house everyday!!!

Once our theme is in place then it’s just a matter of planning the menu.  The birthday person gets to pick their favorite dinner, and what kind of cake they like. A few years ago we had quite a few “Taco Bar” birthdays right in a row.  Everyone wanted tacos and nachos for their birthday dinner!! 

For my own kids, I have always had some fun traditions.  On your birthday morning we wake  everyone up early to rush into the birthday boy or girls bedroom for a rousing wake you up rendition of “Happy Birthday to you”, sung as loud as we possibly can.

For a few years Travel Man and I would take all of our kids out on the birthday persons’ actual birthday, and then we came to our senses because it was getting way too expensive.  After that we started taking out just the birthday honoree by themselves.  That was  a fun thing to do.  It was great to get some alone time with just the birthday boy or girl.

On my kids’ sixteenth birthdays I gave each of them a journal, and in the first few pages of the journal I wrote my memories to them of the day they were born.  I think this tradition started because the kids would always ask about the day they were born, either on or around their birthdays every year.  I wanted them to have the memories to last a lifetime.

For the 21st birthdays I make a picture collage for the kids.  This is a birth to adulthood collage, a wonderful walk down memory lane.  And this year will mark my last collage, as Zach will be turning 21 in July.  Oh boo!

We have so much fun when the whole family is together singing happy birthday at the Party House.  First we sing a chorus of happy birthday, and there’s always some sort of harmonizing going on.  Then we do a second verse where we sing like this;

Happy Birthday to you cha, cha, ca (with synchronized clapping)”, “Happy Birthday to you cha,cha, cha.  Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday to you, cha, cha, cha!  The cha, cha’s are always accompanied by hand clapping.

I have to check with my mom or my brother and find out how we started singing this way as I just don’t remember.   We’ve been doing it this way since my kids were very young.  It’s just so much fun.  If you’re a newbie at one of our family birthday parties, when we start on the second chorus it’s definitely a surprise!!

Lot and lots of fun traditions can always be expected at the Party House.  I have always loved starting up traditions new and old, and look forward to keeping them going strong.  The traditions are a great thing to be able to share with your kids, and now the grandson too.  And as any Mom would, I hope that the traditions that I have started with my kids are handed down for generations to come.

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