Something that I really enjoy doing for my kids is throwing them completely themed out birthday parties.
If you’re looking for extremely extravagant, these are not them. While I spend probably more than I should, we are also ballin on a budget so I piece it all together myself.
There are no balloon arches. No neon lights. But we welcome 12-15 kids into our home and try and make it as much fun as possible for them.
I’ll share several more in other blog posts, but here’s the most recent:
My son turned 10 this June and we have done a pool party for him the last three years since we’ve moved into our house. This year, he chose an Olympics theme as we were gearing up for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Decorations
Let’s start with the decorations! For my son’s birthday, since they’re outside for a large portion of it, I theme about four different areas.
Entryway
One is the entry way.
I decided to make the entry way similar to an opening AND closing ceremony – a grand entrance but also where goodie bags are located. To create that feeling I wanted to bring in multiple countries.
I used this banner and strung it across the walls. This little flame was laughable when it arrived but did its purpose as our Olympic flame. I’m also keeping it for Elf season. These balloons completed our global theme.
I then took the Paris Olympics logo? symbol? whatever it’s called and recreated it on my Cricut. I added DJ’s name to the bottom with the year and Olympic Rings and then used bulletin board paper to bring it all together.
I’m going to detail the party favors down below but I also displayed those all here.
Living Room
This year, I decided to theme our living room as an Americana theme with also a finish line/celebratory theme.
The star banner was purchased from Target as part of for their 4th of July collection. I used these balloons from Amazon as the main decoration. Everything else from the Americana theme was from The Dollar Tree.
I purchased little plastic trophies from Hobby Lobby and wrote each child’s name on them in paint pen. The finish line banner was from Target and then I created the Olympic Champions sign on Canva and printed it on cardstock. The balloons were those of the Olympic ring colors.
While simple, I really liked how these two spots tied into the overall theming in the house.
Kitchen/Dining Area
I decided to bring the Olympic rings and colors together here.
We kept it super simple but it tied the theme together. I used plastic table cloths from Party City in Olympic ring colors. These rings decorated the back wall. I used this banner to decorate the front of the food. I loved that it was in color theme and also had a different Olympic sport on each pennant. The trophy food bowls I got from Target and then I used this garland to decorate the top of the buffet.
I kept our dining table simple since we have people sit and eat there so decorated with balloons and this runner.
I always do a small cake in addition to cupcakes so that the kids can have a cake topper and blow out candles without the hassle of having to cut a cake. I displayed the desserts on our island with these sparkly rings.
I used the Olympic ring colors as inspiration for our cutlery and plates. The lunch plates were red and these napkins were the perfect complement. For dessert, the plates were green and cocktail napkins yellow. Lastly, we used gold cutlery to tie it all together! All of this came from Party City.
Outside
I didn’t take any pictures of outside but I used a cloth backed tablecloth on our table outside. I found these cool buckets at The Dollar Tree that looked like red and blue solo cups so I put those down the middle of the table and filled them with ice and Gatorades.
Food
I’m a huge believer in making the food part as easy as possible.
We did Costco pizza because honestly, is there a better way to feed 15 5th graders?! I used plastic cylinder containers from Party City to hold Funyuns (gold medals, get it?). The Trophy bowls held two different types of popcorn and I put ice cream cones in them to look like torches. Lastly, I picked five different fruits to match the colors of the rings: blueberries, blackberries, pineapple, green grapes, and strawberries that I displayed in black bowls.
On the dining table I put some medal Reese’s I found at Sam’s and then added some butterscotch candies into plastic bowls.
DJ’s cake was from Vons. It was in the cake case that morning (I had planned on making one the night before but our air conditioning went out…in summer…in Vegas…..sooooo, that was out of the question. Side note: we thankfully had someone come out that morning and fix whatever coil it was that needed fixing). It fit our theme perfectly and I just added the number candles from Target!
My cousin is awesome and always makes the cupcakes for the party. I used these flags and Olympic rings as toppers.
Lastly, I laid out a package of golden Oreos and then cut some red, white, and blue ribbon and attached to the backs of the last ones with simple cake frosting.
Goodie Bags
I showed the goodie bags above but here’s the items that went into them! I try and make them semi-useful so that it’s not a ton of junk. I made tags on Canva and attached to each bag with twine.
- A mixture of plain blue bags from Target and these bags from Amazon.
- Fun size bags of Funyuns
- I also found red, white, and blue Ring Pops at Sam’s.
- Pencils
- Olympic flags
- Stickers
- Their trophy from the Finish Line
- I found red, white, and blue glow sticks at Target
All in all, DJ had a great party! We didn’t do any activities because the pool itself is one and that’s about as much organized activity I can wrangle this group of kids into. It was such a great kick off into Olympic season and my boy had the best day.
