Alligator Party -3yr- Pin Tail On The Alligator

For my son's third birthday party, he picked an alligator theme.  Well, there are barely any ideas out there for this theme, so I had to be creative.  His birthday is in July, so we had an outside party. 

For the invitation, I found a clipart of an alligator holding a bunch of balloons and printed this on cardstock, along with "Matthew is turning three.  Join our little gator for some birthday fun.  And then the date, time, place, and to bring swimsuits.  (I always print our invitations on one side only with no fold so that it is easier to scrapbook.) 

For decorations, we had green balloons tied to our deck, toy alligators placed on tables, inflatable alligators in the pool, and printed out pictures of alligators hung on walls.  We also had our Pin the Tail on the Alligator posterboard hung up.  We also used green plates, napkins, and cups.  When the kids arrived, we had our inflatable pool set out along with a small pool for babies.  We also had a slip-n-slide set up.  The kids played with the inflatable alligators and took turns sliding down the slip-n-slide on the alligators. 

For food we just grilled burgers, hotdogs, had chips, cheese nips, and a big jug of lemonade.  My husband made an alligator cake out of a party hat pan.  It was just the head of an alligator, and it was a big hit. 

For games, we did the Pin the Tail on the Alligator.  My husband used a piece of green posterboard and drew the whole alligator on it minus the tail and then cut other pieces out for the tails for kids to tape on.  We don't do prizes for games yet since the kids are so young.  We also had a water balloon toss, which the kids loved.  I wanted to do a alligator hunt where we looked for little toy alligators in the sandbox, but I couldn't find any. 

For party favors, we bought bags and filled them with crayons, Scooby Snacks, suction cup balls, and sidewalk chalk since I couldn't find anything alligator-y.  For the babies, we just bought board books that were in the $1 bins at Target.  Matthew loved his alligator birthday party, even though we couldn't find all that much to implement the theme with.