Planning a party is one of the parts of a parent’s job description that can be the most daunting. What’s age-appropriate? Where are the best places to consider as party venues in Huntsville and Madison County? How can you throw a good party and stay within your budget? We plan on helping busy parents find the answers to those questions and more in our series, “It’s My Party“, where we invite real, local parents to share their great party planning experiences with other readers.

Big thanks to Beth R. for sharing her daughter’s birthday party experience with us!

Sunshine Birthday Party

Age & gender of child: 2 year-old girl

Party Theme: “You Are My Sunshine”

Party Location: Earlyworks Children’s Museum

Facility Rental Costs: $150 Non-Member / $135 Member

Number of Party Guests: 20 total

Invitations: Invitations Provided by Earlyworks! We also sent one we created because we are extra.

Decorations & Food

The Cake: We had a family friend bake some incredible cookies that were *almost* too pretty to eat! She would not accept money, so we donated some diapers and baby gifts for her upcoming baby. We also grabbed 24 cupcakes from Publix Bakery ($16) that had pink and orange buttercream swirled on top of 12 vanilla and 12 chocolate cupcakes.

Because our daughter was born the first day of the month, we are lucky that most “party” food is on sale at grocery stores from the holidays and the Superbowl. We started buying a few bags of chips, drinks when we saw they were on sale with a deal of buy one get one!

We picked up 6 pizzas from Little Caesars because pizza is easy and most kids eat it.

Decorations: Our party started at 11:30, but they allowed us to arrive at 10:30 AM to decorate. We brought in three table cloths and 12+ balloons. That was as much as we decorated.

Favors & Activities

Games & Activities: After we ate, we went downstairs to watch a puppet show and play in Biscuit’s Backyard. All the kids from ages 11months – 7 years old loved it! They loved all of the hands on activities.

Favors: Earlyworks provides favors too – I didn’t realize this! I had gone to dollar tree to get bubbles, stickers, a pencil, and a memory game for kids so they got double the treats!

Earlyworks Party Pro-Tips

I started out trying to be ambitious by looking up Eclipse themes online, but ended up going with something super simple because 1) she’s only two years old, and  2) we only had around an hour in the room where we eat and the main event was playing in the museum, plus 3) KISS Keep it simple silly!

Make sure that you spend your time in the room upstairs by eating first thing or opening presents. It was great having a set of grandparents or family friends help clean up and bring everything in from the car. I went with the party and my husband and both sets of Millie’s grandparents stayed to help clean up everything and put it in the car. The entire process from booking the party to arriving was so easy. The ladies working were kind and so sweet to my entire party – especially the birthday girl!

We had family from out of town come in and say how much they loved the hands-on play and the museum. We stayed until around 2:30pm. A great time was had by all and best of all, I didn’t have to clean my house for tons of people!

[themify_box style=”lavender announcement”]Do you want to participate and share your personal party experience with other Huntsville parents? Just fill out our secure submission form here.[/themify_box]

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