Last year, at a consignment sale I found a Dino four shirt and immediately decided I would throw my son a dinofour (dinosaur fourth) birthday party. There was only one problem, he now has an opinion on these things. Don’t believe me, look at his third Blaze and the Monster Machines birthday party. He convincingly told me that he wanted a Blaze and the Monster Machines party and did not change his mind at all. Gone are the days when I came up with birthday party themes I wanted, like Puppy Dog Pals and Mr. Onederful. To be fair to me, I did base each of his birthday party themes them on what he was into at the time.
1. Dinofour Outfit: Dinofour Shirt
Just by looking at that dino four tshirt, I could already see his entire dinofour birthday party. I had ideas of dinosaur birthday invitations, of couse, the dinosaur shirt and the rest of his dinosaur birthday party outfit, dinosaur cake, dinosaur decorations and adding more dinosaur books to his growing collection.
Dinofour?
I thought it was the cutest thing to play on the word dinosaur and a fourth birthday with the word dinofour. Whomever, came up with the merging of the words dinosaur and four to make dinofour is genius because I do not know a four year old who doesn't love dinosaurs or whose parent wouldn't agree that they do behave much like dinosaurs, lol.
In the end, I bought the dinofour shirt, thinking at least it was cute. I didn’t think much else of it until about late March when I was starting to change out my son's winter clothes for summer ones and I came across the shirt. I started trying to make plans for an awesome dinofour party, but didn't get very far in the planning stage.
Unfortunately, by then my entire family and most of the world, or non essential staff, were home sheltering in place from the global pandemic and I was conflicted on even trying to plan a party, much less a themed dinosaur/dinofour birthday party. I didn't want to waste time and money or endanger my family or anyone else.
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Even though I wasn't sure if we'd be able to go ahead with his dinofour party, I decided to ask my son his thoughts anyway, just to see what he was thinking. Would you believe that when I asked him what type of party he wanted for his birthday he said, almost immediately, a dinosaur and superhero birthday. I couldn’t believe it. I showed him the dinofour shirt and he was sold, “I want a dinosaur birthday party, mommy.”
Over the next few weeks, I participated in birthday caravans and realized the chances of having a “normal” dinofour birthday party were slim, so I started thinking of other options. I scoured Pinterest and Google and didn’t love much of what I found. I knew with our current restrictions, some of the options out there wouldn’t be sensible or achievable for a dinofour party.
2. Order Dinosaur Birthday Party Supplies
Slowly, I started assembling a plan, I found some dinosaur birthday party decorations and even a Dinofour balloon display. I found cups, plates and spoons to go with the decorations.
3. Secure a Dinofour Cake
Next, I reached out to my amazing sister-in-law, who always makes my son’s birthday cakes, to ask for her help with a dinofour birthday cake. I told her this year we’d be dialing back (no cupcakes or cookies), but I did want an amazing dinofour cake to make up for the fact he would probably not have friends at his party. She told me not to worry and she would handle it. The only thing I had to do was to get the toppers for the cake. I found the perfect dinofour cake topping set on Amazon.
4. Special Dinofour/ Birthday Touches: Caravans, Gifts...
In addition to my dinofour birthday plans a few of my friends also shared that they would do a birthday caravan on my sonn's actual birthday. With all those moving parts in place, I started to feel better about his dinofour/dinosaur birthday party. Instead of goodie bags, I decided to do dress up masks. I know many parents can agree with me when I say, I’ve started to hate the tiny toys and candy in goodie bags and had wanted to move away from it anyway. This dinofour party gave me an excellent reason to try something else.
The masks would add a cute whimsical touch during the dinofour party and I could also pass them out on the day of his actual birthday during the birthday caravan, as a gift to my friend's children for being so thoughtful.
5. Dinofour Invitation
The only things that were nagging me at this point were cute special dinofour birthday party touches like a dinosaur birthday party invitation or other treats and the fact that my son had asked for a superhero party too when I first had asked him.
I ended up creating his dinofour birthday party invitation myself this year. For birthdays one, two and three I had had them created, but this year, I felt confident enough to do it alone. I think his dinofour birthday party invitations turned out ok.
Birthday Extras
While I was finishing up with his dinofour invitation, I had a great idea. His actual birthday would be on Tuesday and we wouldn’t have the party until Saturday, so I could do some superhero celebrating on Tuesday and then lean into the dinofour birthday celebration on Saturday.
Back to ordering I went, In additiona to all the dinfour decorations, I got some superhero balloons for him to wake up to on his birthday and started making him an Amazon wishlist with superhero gifts. I added lots of books on members of the Avengers and Batman (his current favorites) and the cutest Avengers swim trunks to the other gifts I'd already assembled for his dinofour party.
I also got my other sister-in law involved because she makes tshirts and now I had decided to have a superhero birthday outfit as well as a dinofour birthday outfit. I asked her to make a superhero four tshirt as well as a dinofour shirt. I know, I know, what about the shirt I had already bought? Well, the original dinofour shirt was black and white and the color scheme for the party had moved to green, gold and blue, so I wanted something that would fit in better.
Now, all that was left to do was wait for everything to arrive and then wait for his actual birthday. All the dinofour and superhero decorations came in on schedule from Amazon, but then we had another hiccup.
For the second year in a row, first, during his Blaze and the Monster Machines party and now during his dinofour birthday party, it was predicted to storm on my son’s birthday. I couldn’t believe it, but I shouldn't be surprised anymore. We do live in Georgia and the weather here is extremelty unpredictable. I've seen all four seasons in Georgia in one week before and I'm not exaggerating. The good news was the bad weather wouldn’t hit until late afternoon, but the bad news was that was when his birthday caravan was planned too.
I decided we would just play it by ear. His big day came and he woke up to superhero decorations and gifts as planned. He loved the superhero four shirt his aunt had made. We took a small family excursion to go get ice cream and see my mother-in-law, his granna, and then headed home.
To keep the celebration going, we made pizza, his favorite, for dinner. We made a meatlovers pizza with pepperoni, bacon and beef only to have my son pick all the toppings off, except for the cheese, but he was the birthday boy.
After we ate, we were pleasantly surprised that the rain was very light, so we were able to have a small birthday caravan. A few friends drove by our house with signs and decorations on their cars to wish my son happy birthday and drop gifts off to him.
We survived and he loved his actual birthday, but he was very excited for his dinosaur/dinofour birthday celebration. On the Saturday following my son's birthday, we hosted a small, grandparents and cousins only, dinofour birthday celebration at our house.
My son loved watching his dad and I decorate our garage and house for his dinofour party. He was so excited in fact that he released several balloons into the air (I wasn’t amused about it then, but it’s cute now). My grand finale touch for my son's dinofour birthday party was a dinosaur dessert cup for the children that I found on Pinterest.
You should have seen his face. He ran up and greeted every “guest” that arrived and proudly showed off his balloons and dino four tshirt. He then promptly wanted to get changed into his dinsosaur swimming trunks and get in the pool once his cousins arrived.
They loved playing together during his dinofour party in the water and had a ball. Finally, it was time to eat hotdogs, hamburgers and chicken. My favorite part of the day though and I think my son’s too was his cake. My sister in law completely outdid herself. Not only was his cake gorgeous, but it had an “active volcano” and sparkled. I will add that his dinofour cake was also delicious.
My other special dinofour birthday treat for the children that I mentioned above was a hit. They're called dinosaur dirt cups and came from Made to Be a Momma. I added a dinosaur egg to my dinosaur dirt cups. My son, nieces and nephews love the dinofour dirt cups.
After the actual dinofour birthday party, we played Kinect bowling and watched the children play together. Too soon, it was time for everyone to go home. My new dinofour had a bath and then promptly fell asleep with daddy on the couch. Happy birthday, little dinofour.
Before You Go
Will you have a dinofour soon? Does your little one have a birthday coming up? Do you already have a plan? I’d love to hear about it below.
How do you keep your kids occupied? My son and I have become very creative in the activities we do to be active, have fun and learn. We start every morning with a fun walk in our neighborhood. After our walk, we work on at home preschool unique preschool activities and experiments. We've also had a book character dress up week. Another go to for us is Throughout the day we read several quality books and activities from our Owl Post Books subscription box. Here's my affiliate code (OPBKIMBERLIE) to receive 10% of your Owl Post Books.
Is your child older? Are you worried that they will not be ready for the upcoming grade level, if schools are able to reopen in the fall? Here are some of the best online learning websites for bored kids and creative and fantasy writing prompts to keep your children learning and happy.
I know our other big challenge lately has been food. My opinionated, now four year old likes a very limited selection of food. Some of the recipes I made almost weekly because he loves them and will eat them are Jamaican banana fritters and breakfast pizza.
Another thing that has come in handy for us has been our karate school. Even throughout the lockdown, they’ve continued karate classes online. My son has loved seeing his friends, instructors and sensei, continuing his training and participating in the special themed days and weeks. We’ve also had a good time playing with his favorite indoor and outdoor toys. They've come in handy to break up our days and give us both a breather on tough days.
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