Noah's 4th: Noahsaurus Rex Turns 4!

We had Noey's final big bash on Saturday in the weekend following his birthday. This was the highlight of his birthday celebrations, for him and for me!

After the big party that was his 1st birthday, we had kept Noey's 2nd and 3rd birthdays progressively smaller. Partly from lack of energy on my part (you know, from being pregnant and having a newborn respectively), but also because I figured he wouldn't appreciate it. This year was different. He's older, more able to participate in games, and was really looking forward to turning 4. And yes, I was itching to throw a party too. 

I started the party planning process consulting with Noey about the theme for his party.

"For your party, would you like Dinosaurs, Cars, or Space?" I asked.

"How about Dinosaurs driving Cars in Space?" he countered. 

Nice try, boy.

Much as I wanted him to have what he wanted, Dinosaurs driving Cars in Space was a tall order! I did some research and decided that Dinosaurs was the theme with the most options, so Dinosaurs it was.

I got down to work.

First, our outfits. I was surfing through Etsy and was delighted to come across some customisable t-shirts with dinosaur silhouettes on them. And they had adult sizes! I congratulated myself on starting work on this party early enough for me to order stuff online from overseas, and placed an order for Papagosaurus, Mamadactyl, Noahsaurus Rex and Naomiceratops. The tees were super cute and I was very pleased with them! 

Of course, when I hit on the idea of painting my own shirts, I was less thrilled about how quickly I'd moved to order these shirts. But hey, at least the shirts were nice! We got loads of compliments on them and I felt they were a nice way to dress to theme without looking ridiculous.

Next up were the games. This met a slight hiccup when someone else beat me to the lunch slot at my chosen venue, which was the function room at my parents' condo. Argh! I was left with the evening slot and decided to go ahead and turn the party into a dinner one instead. The problem was that there would be less time since the party couldn't go on till too late, and I would only have about 2 hours before it got dark outside. I was a little disappointed, but decided to see how much I could squeeze in.

I had a whole bunch of ideas and at one point produced a list of seven activities -- four static stations and three games. My husband persuaded me to cut it down to five activities, gently pointing out that there was not going to be enough time to do everything. In the end, I had to drop one more game because of time constraints, so he was right!

These are what we managed to do:

Dinosaur Dig

This was an "excavation site" with something all kids love -- sand! I filled a big box with playsand, provided some shovels and rakes and got them to dig away! Of course, to give them something to find, I made these babies:

Crayons in dinosaur shapes! Made simply by breaking up regular crayons into silicon moulds and melting them in the oven. I made them two-toned cos I thought they were more interesting that way (and to increase the chances that kids would take the less popular colours). Aren't they use the cutest! I threw a whole lot of these into the sand with instructions that each child was to excavate four dinosaurs and left them to it.

It was a huge hit! The little ones were happy just digging and digging for no reason in particular, while the older ones concentrated on trying to find the colours and designs of the dinosaurs that they liked. There was always a child or two (or four) standing around and having a go.

Design Your Own Paleontologist Bag

This was a paper bag decorating station. The children helped themselves to a brown kraft paper bag, and I left a whole bunch of art materials out, including a set of dinosaur stencils, alphabet stencils, stickers, markers and more markers, and glitter glue. The 5 and 6 year-olds loved this one. Some of the little girls sat and coloured for quite a while, gleefully using up the glitter glue. Easily the easiest activity to put together and the bags came in useful in a later activity, plus doubled up as favour bags too.

Research Library

This was really just a play corner for kids. I filled a big box with toys -- plastic dinosaurs and lego ones (of course), a stack of dinosaur books, many of which I borrowed from the library, duplo blocks, some simple puzzles, a ball or two, and some plastic pith hats with dino prints on them. Just to digress a bit on the hats: I had intended to hand the hats out to the kids when they came to the party, but out of my order of 16 hats, only 12 were delivered. Sigh. So in the end, I left the kids to pick one up if they were interested.

This toy box -- which was an idea I first used for Naomi's 1st birthday -- proved to be very useful for keeping kids occupied during the in-between times when there was nothing to do. The only problem was lugging the box of stuff down, as my husband would attest to!

Dinosaur Egg/Poop Hunt

I decided not to have a piñata for this party, and when I came across this idea of making dinosaur eggs which "hatched" out little dinosaurs, I figured a mass egg hunt would be a good way to round things off and to distribute the treats to the kids! The husband stared at me doubtfully when I started mushing the dough around, but he agreed with me that cracking the eggs open and finding the little dinosaurs would be fun.

The only problem was that everyone who saw the eggs I made thought they looked like poop! Grrr. After the umpteenth comment on my poop-like eggs, we decided that we'd just call them poop!

So poop with hidden dinosaurs it was. The kids didn't care! We rounded everyone up and herded them outside before it got too late. DD explained the instructions -- "pick up 3 pieces of this dinosaur poop, not any real poop you see lying around!" -- and flagged them off! Together with my dinosaur poop were plenty of little packets of gummy sweets which the kids were more than happy to collect too.

And remember those bags they decorated earlier? This is where they came in handy.

There was a separate corner with plastic eggs, filled with more toddler-friendly treats like raisins, fruit treats and little goldfish biscuits for the little ones.

Other activities which I wanted to have but didn't manage to execute:

Decorate a Dinosaur Cookie -- I have some dinosaur cookie cutters which I was going to put to good use. Make some icing and set up toppers like hundreds and thousands and you're good to go! DD vetoed this, and when I came down with a fever for two nights right before the party, I was kind of glad he did.

Pin the Horn on the Triceratops -- The dino version of pin the tail on the donkey. I had the full intention of playing this game, but we realised the night before that there wasn't going to be enough time and had to scrap the idea.

Dinosaur Egg Race -- This was supposed to be an egg race with teams of kids competing to transport an egg on a spoon from a start point to an end point. The small catch to it was that they had to wear a dinosaur tail while doing it! I got a couple of dino tails sewn up by my talented friend Debra, and had borrowed a couple of hers too for the game. But by the time we were done with dinner and ready for this, it started getting dark. So we plumped for the Egg/Poop hunt and shelved this instead. It's a pity cos I think it would have been fun!

After the games, it was time for the cake. My original plan was to make the dinosaur cake again for this party (but in a different colour). But after slaving away at the cake the first time round, I chickened out of making it again and decided to order a cake from Awfully Chocolate for this party instead. I think I gave them some grief over the design. I was hopeful that they could produce a dinosaur driving a car in space, but sadly, my request was rejected. Instead we agreed upon a dinosaur with a rainbow and some stars thrown in. Yes, I do realise that you're not going to get a rainbow and stars in the sky at the same time in real life, but I thought it'd jazz the cake up a bit!

The best part about cakes by Awfully Chocolate is that you don't have to worry about them tasting good. Yum!

Just a quick note on the party favours before I end off. Since the kids were already picking up the plastic dinosaurs in the egg/poop, together with all the sweets, I kept the bag small, with one set of the same dinosaur erasers + stickers + hatching eggs which I also gave to Noey's classmates, a little book from the "How Do Dinosaurs" series (there were 4 titles to choose from), and a little magnifying glass whistle. The whistle seemed like a good idea right up to the point when the kids pulled them out of the bags and started blowing!

And with that, I'm all dinosaur-ed out!

I had heaps of fun with this party, and my only regrets are that I didn't manage to hold this party in the morning, when I would have had more time to carry out everything I wanted to do, and the fact that there wasn't enough food! The latter was a boo-boo on our part, which another story altogether. Thankfully everyone was very nice about it as we fervently made a note not to repeat such an error ever again. I also regret not having a photographer for the day as DD was really too busy to take any pictures, so I have very few nice pics to show for the whole day.

Then again, I don't think a professional photographer would have been able to take a much better photograph of all the kids together than the one we got! It was an exercise in futility trying to get all the kids seated and looking at the camera, but hey, at least we tried!

It was a lot of work but my reward came from knowing that Noey enjoyed himself tremendously. He's now already talking about his 5th birthday party! Oh dear!

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I got some questions asking where I got some of my stuff so I decided to update this post with some tips and sources.

• Dinosaur Tees: From Etsy store Priceless Kids
• Playsand: From Far East Flora. It's not expensive, but comes in a 25kg bag. Definitely bring a car to pick it up!
• Crayons: Use Crayola for the best results. Cheap crayons don't seem to melt properly, unfortunately. There are lots of tutorials on the web teaching you how to do this. Just google "How to Make Crayons"!
• Silicon Moulds: From China suppliers on Ebay. I also got a much more expensive made-in-Italy one from Phoon Huat which I decided to use only for food.
• Dinosaur Stencils: From Fun with Dinosaur Stencils. Came across this at a toy store at Tanglin Mall.
• Brown Kraft Paper Bags: From Art Friend. If anyone knows somewhere that I can get them for cheaper (these were $1.50 each), please let me know!