A Dinosaur Dig Bithday Party

Its a month late, well over a month, but here it is

Monster's 5th Birthday Dinosaur Dig!

The Monster turned five this year, and I feel slightly guilty for the tiny celebration that we had last year.  In my defense I was nine months along with the Bearcub.  This year I'm still didn't want to plan an all out birthday bash or spend crazy amounts of unnecessary money. That being said clowns, bouncy houses, and ponies were out and a simple, yet fun, party with family and close friends was in.

The first step was to pick a theme, which I left up to the Monster,  I wanted him to be as involved as possible in the process from beginning to end.  We went through so many ideas I thought he would never decide on one, but eventually he settled on dinosaurs.  I was thrilled because some of his other ideas did not appeal to me at all and because I love dinosaurs.

The next step was invitations and who would be invited. Again I left that primarily up to the Monster.  He was more than willing to give me a list of who he wanted at his party, but when it came to picking out invitations he had far less interested.  I picked several super simple invitations out and let the Monster pick his favorite, did a small amount of cutting, and then let the monster glue the pieces together.

Address and phone number were placed on the back

Dinosaur footprint invitations
5 Sheets of colored construction paper (from a pad of 200 sheets bought for 3.69) roughly 0.09
Ink pen irrelevantly low
Glue stick irrelevantly low
Hand delivered so no envelope or stamp cost.
Total cost of invitations(rounded up) =0.10


 One thing that the Monster insisted on was party hats and I thought we could be super crafty and make them.  "We" turned into mostly me, but the monster was more than willing to test them for me.

Dinosaur Party Hats
This link was the main source  of inspiration for the hats.  Everybody loved them!  I did use elastic and tape instead of ribbon, which was much easier for small children to put on and take off.
Simmworks Family Blog: Dinosaur Party Hats {How To}
Thin elastic string 1.00
10 Sheets of construction paper 0.18
Tape irrelevantly low
Total cost of party hats = 1.18

The party hats laid out

 Unfortunately, I dropped my camera prior to the party and the screen broke so I had no way of seeing what I was taking picture of, what setting the camera was on, or even the ability to change the setting beyond random guessing.  So I only have a few halfway decent photos from the party, which is very disappointing, and not really any pictures of the birthday boy or the dig its self.

I got super lucky and while shopping for dinosaurs I found little paper triceratops' and made a banner out of them.  I had enough left over that I used them to label the juices and the food.

You can't read it but the banner says Happy 5th Birthday Monster

Birthday Banner
36 paper triceratops 1.00
String I had laying around 0.00
Tape irrelevantly low
Total cost of birthday banner = 1.00

 I borrowed the little toy dinosaurs that the Monster already had so they didn't get confused with the dinosaurs from the dig and found a nice aquarium tucked in the basement that and a little filling from the dig and I was creating my very own little Jurassic Park.

My own dinosaur aquarium!

Dinosaur DigUnfortunaly there are no photos of the dig, but I assure you it was amazing and the kids loved it!

Dig site/sand box was borrowed from my parents 0.00
Filling was bedding for the snakes cage. I buy compressed coconut fibers which have to be re-hydrated before use so not only was the filling free it was convenient. 0.00
Digging tools I used plastic spoons and forks I had accumulated 0.00
Plastic dinosaurs 2 packages of 8 at $1 each = 2.00
Total = 2.00

Food
Food by far was the biggest cost and my desire to have healthy snacks, and even healthy cupcakes made it even more so.

Baby carrots 1.00
Cauliflower 3.00
Green pepper 1.00
Subtotal = 4.00

Chicken legs 5.00
Spices 0.00
Subtotal = 5.00







Cup cakes
(Sadly no pictures of these either.)
I really dislike give kids massive amounts of sugar, and I really love eating Paleo, so when the Monster asked for a strawberry cake I went searching the internet for a Paleo strawberry cake and this is what I found. 
http://www.agirlworthsaving.net/2012/06/paleo-strawberry-cake.html
I doubled the recipe and skipped the icing, making a strawberry glaze instead.  I thought they were delicious and the Monster loved them so I consider that a win.

I had never used coconut flour before and I was lucky that my mother found it for me, no where close to me sells it.  I really liked using it.  It added a great flavor and texture.
I didn't keep careful track of the prices for the cupcake supplies so I'm going to estimate.
Subtotal = 10.00 (for 16)

Drinks
100% apple juice 3.00
100% grape juice 3.00
Subtotal = 6.00

Food total = 25.00 
I did however over prepare and we had a lot of leftovers, except for cupcakes the Monster and Giant devoured those pretty quickly.


Photo Slide Show
I went through my photos of the Monster and copied some of my favorites over the years into a folder and played it as a slide show during the party.  I played a dinosaur CD on repeat on low as back ground music.  It was a hit!  I myself enjoyed looking at all the things we've done over the years and how much the Monster has grown and changed.  Might have to make a slide show a yearly thing.


Conclusion
Though I had my doubts about my personal ability to pull off a, not only enjoyable, but organized, inexpensive, and attractive party, I think I managed it.  I'm excited to plan more parties in the future!