14724

Four Seasons 3yr

December 2006

Mandy in Waterloo, AL 35677

Runner Up

My daughter recently turned 3 and we decided to throw her a 4-seasons party. She's really not in to any specific character, so we thought this idea would be fun for all. Now, I am normally one to buy holiday merchandise after the holiday, so I already had plenty of stuff to get started.  I started a few months before the party drawing different holiday/seasonal pictures from colorings pages I had at home.  I had Christmas scenes, Easter scenes, Valentine, Halloween you name it, I drew it.  I drew so many mainly because my daughter always has a hayride during her party and I put these out as decorations throughout the field.  Just to give you an idea, I probably drew around 50 or 60 different ones. I also had a wide variety of holiday paper plates that I had collected throughout the year, plus napkins to match. For the invites I created a little poem that tied in with the theme.  They turned out so cute!  I asked in the invite for all the children (all 24 of them) to come dressed in their favorite holiday shirt.  On the day of the party, they all showed up with different holiday shirts on.  My daughter wore a Happy Easter shirt and my oldest daughter wore a Christmas t-shirt.  It was exciting to see what each child's favorite holiday was.  When the children arrived, they each got to immediately go to the craft table and make a holiday craft of their choosing.  There was a craft for each season and holiday.  After crafts and after everyone had arrived we had an Easter egg hunt.  I live out in the country so I had plenty of room.  I had bought 700 eggs after Easter and we hid them before the party began. I passed out Easter baskets that had also been purchase at a discount, to each child.  They went wild. All my trees and shrubs had spring like decorations on them.  This was in my front and side yard. After the egg hunt, we played mummy wrap.  I had the 3 oldest kids there be the mummies and split the remaining kids up in 3 groups and the 3 groups raced to see who could wrap their mummies in toilet paper the fastest.  Everyone was laughing so much, it was hard to wrap, but very fun! At that point we all sat down to eat pizza, which is most kid's favorite food year round, and rested ourselves a bit.  After pizza came the decorating of the Christmas tree.  Before the party, I had brought my actual Christmas tree outside on my carport and put the lights on it for starters. The children then helped me in decorating the tree with ornaments that consisted of valentine ornaments, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween and of course, Christmas.  Then I asked as we finished up, "Who comes when we put up our Christmas trees?"  They all shouted "Santa", and out stepped Santa Claus right on cue with a sack full of goodies for every child. The goodies he handed out also went with our theme.  He passed out sand shovels and rakes, and spring flowers with bunny heads on them. Also on our carport I had made a fireplace out of cardboard, it turned out remarkably well for my first one!  I put real logs and wrapped clear lights around the logs to resemble a lit fire.  And of course, each child had a stocking with their name on it, hanging from the mantel with a candy cane tucked neatly inside. Yes, it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas on our carport.  But, in my backyard it was summer. There was the kids swing set, the trampoline, sand box, most of which stays out all year.  Beach balls were thrown everywhere for the beach feel. We had some sand for them to use their shovels and rakes.  No water, because of the time of year.  I had sidewalk chalk that they could draw with also. After some free play, we had cake and ice cream.  My daughter's cake was awesome.  The lady who makes my girls' cakes does an amazing job.  I told her what kind I wanted and man did she deliver.  It was a sheet cake divided up into 12 different sections.  Each little section had the month of the year and a picture coordinating with that month, example:  January she had a snowman. Feb./heart, March/Shamrock and so on.  Next came presents. People brought her presents wrapped in different seasonal paper or bags and we put all her gifts underneath the Christmas tree. Then my daughter sat down in front of the Christmas tree and opened her all presents. After that everyone was ready for our annual hayride.  Every year, the hayride ties into the theme, well this year was no different.  I divided the field into different seasons.  The first one we drove through was the spring part.  We had bunnies, and Easter egg tree, ducks and chicks, flowers, anytime tying into spring.  Next came the Fall/Halloween part.  Ghosts and goblins, witches and bats all hung from the trees.  Pumpkins, scarecrows, Pilgrims and Indians were placed around. And Mother Nature herself assisted with the decor in this part, the leaves were beautiful, creating a fall like atmosphere.  Next came the Christmas part.  Like I said, I live in the country, so we had plenty of pine and spruce trees available.  I sprayed them with fake snow and placed my drawings through the field.  It looked great!  I even had a manger scene under the biggest pine tree, complete with wise men.  And last but not least and probably the hardest to decorate was the summer portion.  I bought some 4th of July items at 75% off, but still summer is hard to draw.  I made some watermelon pictures, ice cream cones pictures and placed American flags throughout.  It turned out o.k. but it was my hardest.  When we got back, the kids got to go treat or treating by walking around and getting treats from all the adults at the party.  Each adult had a bag full of candy and each child had a plastic treat or treat sack, then they all whacked the Halloween pinata and racked up on more candy and prizes.  As each child left they got different seasonal/holiday paper bags filled with different holiday items. No two were alike. Plus they each got to go up and pick any ornament from the Christmas tree and take it home.  They also got to keep their Easter baskets, a beach ball, their shovels/rakes, Easter bunny flower, their Halloween sack full of candy and their stocking. They had so much they couldn't carry it all.  All in all it was the best party ever.  The party started at 4:00, it was almost 9:00 before the last guest left.  I was exhausted and so were my girls, but man did they have fun!!!!  P.S. -We were also going to make Valentines for each other too, but time just didn't premit. 

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