Yesterday was Ellia’s 8th birthday. Since we are “at home” and having a party surrounded by friends just isn’t possible right now, Eben and I put our brains together to give her the ultimate birthday.
We were rewarded by hearing her say several times throughout the day “this is the best birthday ever”.
Ellia got a day that was all about HER. She had our undivided attention, catered meals, some crafting, some dress-up, some games, a treasure hunt, and a movie.
If you have a kid’s birthday coming up, that happens to fall during quarantine time, here are some fun activities you can add to their day.
A Personal Restaurant
Ellia loves food. So we made a restaurant menu for her, for every meal of the day. She got to choose all the meals. Eben took “her order”, in the morning, and the payment (with play money) after every meal. She chose Crepes for breakfast, ramen soup for lunch, Vietnamese rice wraps for supper, and Takis for her movie snack.
Quaran-Tea Party
A tea party was in order, but it couldn’t be just any tea party. We had to make it special. Fancy attire and crowns required. So our first activity was crown crafting!
With our array of crafting supplies, we made crowns out of felt, glitter foam sheets, gems, pompoms, and ribbon.
Once the crowns were complete we each set to work creating our tea princess party costumes, and Eben transformed into Albert, the best waiter a tea party ever did see!
Albert had a few surprises to make the tea party a hit, such as juice in wine glasses, watermelon amuse-bouches, jello appetizers, ramen soup in wine glasses, and chocolate birthday cake (from Bridget) for dessert.
The tea party lasted over an hour, and we all stayed in character the entire time!
Treasure Hunt
Eben organized a super fun treasure hunt for Ellia to find all of her birthday presents. Eben hid some presents, some were buried, and some required Survivor-style challenges to get them. Each present came with a clue as to how to get the next. The first clue Ellia found IN her birthday cake.
Presents That Are Games
Two of Ellia’s presents were games we could use throughout the day. The ultimate gift came from Arias, which was a Doctor’s medical kit. Game-play for this was pretty straightforward, one of us was the patient and Doctor Ellia came to fix us.
The second game is called Tap It. It’s a game with 4 light consoles, that flash colors and you have to run around tapping out your colored light. It’s hilarious and exhausting. A great energy-burning game when stuck at home!
Paint Party
With paper, paint, brushes, and an instructional video on youtube, we all sat around the table painting our variations of a sunset with palm trees. It was interesting to see how, even though we were all following the same video, our four paintings came out very different from the others.
Movie Theatre
Arias dressed up as the movie theatre owner, name tag and all. She gave us each a name tag and a movie ticket to her theatre. For the first part of the movie we watched while eating supper, then there was a short intermission (to clean up and set up the living room for the second half).
We brought one of our bed mattresses into the living room and set up a big movie viewing area. Arias took everyone’s theatre snack orders and brought them out to us. It was a super fun way to end the evening, with family cuddles.
The Final Request
Ellia made one last request before bed. She asked if they could sleep with us, so Arias and Eben slept on the living room floor on the mattress we had brought out, and Ellia slept in our room with me.
In Ellia’s words, this was “the best birthday ever”.
This looks like a really sweet day! Fun for the whole family but also made your little one feel really special. I love that it doesn’t have to cost a lot to enjoy this time together with your family! Thank you for sharing.