Dinosaur Party -2yr- Pin Horn on Triceratops

During our last trip to see my parents in Florida, we decided to go to Plant City to see Dinosaur World!  It is a great place for dinosaur lovers with its life size dinosaur replicas.  Our son loved the dinosaurs so much that we decided to have a dinosaur party for his 2nd birthday.  It turned out really cute! 

INVITATION:  We took our son's picture standing in front of one of the dinosaurs at Dinosaur World.  I printed the party invitation on one side of orange cardstock in a postcard format using a font that looked kind of caveman like, and glued the picture to the other side of the card stock.  It is really fun to get a picture postcard in the mail and the postage is less!  The wording we used was: GET READY FOR A ROARING GOOD TIME! (First name) is turning 2 He is inviting you to his DINO-MITE birthday party!!! Join us at The (last name) Cave: address, date and time, Give us a ROOOAAAR and let us know if you can attend. Phone number 

DECORATIONS:  We purchased the Diggin for Dinosaurs decorations and paper products.  I compared prices on the different online stores like Birthday Direct and Birthday Express.  I also purchased some of the decorations and paper products from my local party store that had gone on clearance.  I also got enlargements of some of the pictures from Dinosaur World and used 3D stickers of dinosaur scenes from the dollar bin at Michael's craft store. 

ACTIVITIES:  We pulled out every dinosaur that we owned and had them spread out all over the house for different dinosaur play areas.  The craft we had was wooden dinosaur plaques that I bought unfinished from Oriental Trading.  I painted them blue and got markers, rhinestones and googley eyes to let the kids decorate.  We used the mini glue dots you can buy at the craft store to attach the rhinestones and eyes.  They were cute! 

We played pin the horn on the triceratops.  All of the kids got a velvet poster with markers as the prize that I purchased from the dollar bins at Target.  The other game was a dinosaur egg hunt.  I made the eggs by blowing up balloons that I covered in paper mache (strips of newspaper dipped in a flour and water mixture).  After fully dry, I popped the balloon, cut a small hole in the top of each egg and filled them.  For filler I used a dinosaur squirt toy, stretchy dinosaurs, rock candy, dinosaur fruit snacks, and green paper Easter grass that was on clearance after Easter. 

After they were filled I patched the hole with duct tape.  More paper mache would probably have worked better in the long run.  It would have taken longer to dry, but the paint seemed to make the tape not stick as well.  Then I painted all the eggs.  On half of the eggs I used stone spray paint and on the other half I used black and gold crackle spray paint.  My husband hid the eggs all over the backyard.  The kids had to find them and then break them open.  They smashed them on the back patio.  It was a little messy because of all the Easter grass, but the kids LOVED it!!  Finally, we had a pinata shaped like a dinosaur.  The kids always have fun seeing who can break it! 

CAKE:  I had my local grocery store make a scene with rocks, volcanoes, lava, a crackled pathway and a lake.  I purchased a dinosaur play set from the toy store to decorate with dinosaurs and trees. 

FAVORS:  I purchased sand pails in the party colors from the dollar store to hold all the favors.  I tied a balloon with a tag on it to each pail.  The tag had a dinosaur sticker on one side and the other side said: Thank you for coming to my party! Love (name)  Roooaaar!!  The pails were filled with dinosaur grow capsules, roaring dinosaurs , small plastic dinosaurs, a dinosaur mug, a dinosaur grabber, dinosaur stickers, a dinosaur blow out, dinosaur pencils, dinosaur fruit snacks and a ring pop. 

There were a few babies under the age of 2 there.  They got the pail, the mug, the grabber and a board book from the How do Dinosaurs series.   Most of the favors were either from Target's dollar bin, Michaels dollar bin, or Oriental Trading.  They also had their loot from the dinosaur egg hunt, the prize from pin the horn on the triceratops, the wooden decorated dinosaur and the pinata candy and toys.  Looking back, I could have gotten away with just the egg, but it was really fun (and easy) to shop for this party! 

THANK YOU NOTES:  I purchased a package of blank dinosaur note cards from the Dinosaur World gift shop and used them as the thank you notes.  I also included a foam dinosaur picture frame with a picture of each child to send with their thank you note.  I purchased the frames from Oriental Trading and assembled them myself.  I used the mini glue dots to put the frame together and I used the larger glue dots to attach the magnet to the back so it was stronger.  It was a great party!!!  My kids are still talking about it on a regular basis and it was months ago.