My son's 4th birthday was Buzz Lightyear. He has a twin sister and her's was Princesses (of course!) so we just invited the entire preschool class (about 25 kids) and ran with it! We rented a jumpy-jump and the party was outside in the backyard. Their birthdays are in September and we're in NJ so the weather was perfect (or could have been torrential rain so we got lucky!) I'm really into parties not being giant affairs, costing too much money or being ridiculously showy. I am very artsy-craftsy as well as a kindergarten teacher so things like this roll off my back. Most important - make it fun for yourself as well as you son.
Invitations: Printed out on green paper with a quirky little message. Something like, "Attention Space Ranger - Buzz needs your help. Report to Alpha Station on what date at what time to conquer Zurg. RSVP to the Commander (me!)" I attached directions with a heading of, "Destroy After Reading! Do Not Allow Zurg To Find Us!" I got Buzz and Woody stamps at the craft store and stamped those on the bottom along with star punch outs. The kids still play with the stamps 3 years later!
Decorations: The party was outside so it was easy. I got silver, green and purple cardboard stars from Party City in varying sizes (from 6 to 18 inches) and hung them from the swing set, the doorways, off the deck, etc. I got a Buzz tablecloth and put it on the table along with a bunch of the boys' Toy Story toys.
Favor: I made Buzz wings for the boys to wear. I basically cut posterboard into the wing shape, sewed a sleeve in that shape out of Buzz & Zurg fabric I found at
WalMart and slipped it on. I stitched on 2 pieces of elastic and they slid over the boys' arms onto their shoulders. Very cute, very lightweight and the boys loved them (the girls too, in fact, most of the kids were wearing both the wings and the sparkly princess cone hats I made!) FYI - both the wings and the hats showed up on different kids throughout the year at the pre-school! Left-overs actually went to the preschool's dress-up bin this past summer when we moved to a new house!!
Games: Since I had the jumpy-jump I didn't worry too much about games but I did make sure there were activities for when someone got bored in the jumper or wanted to do something with their hands. I printed out Disney coloring sheets and had washable markers and water color paints to use. I also made tons of clay - bright purple and green with glitter in it - and had rollers and cutters to use. I also hid in the sandbox lots of little green army men and glow in the dark plastic stars (from the dollar store) and the boys could pick out a few each. There was also girl stuff in there - rings, tattoo packs, smartie candies, etc. Have little zip-locks or brown paper bags, already labeled with kids' names, so they have a place for their loot - clay, coloring sheets, army men, etc.
Cake: Since there were so many kids and there was a family party later on, I made cone cupcakes and decorated the boys' with green and purple icing. To make it Buzz-y I got Buzz, Zurg and LGM stickers and mounted them on a toothpick and then on paper, cut out the shape and stuck one in each cake cone. Really easy. For food, I had pizza. I covered pizza boxes in foil (yes, did it days before, we eat alot of pizza!) and then colored a sheet of paper with "Pizza Planet" and pics of the characters on it and glued it on the boxes. The kids throught it came from the movie's restaurant (ah - the innocence of 3 and 4 year olds!) For the family party, I made a big cake with different layers and decorated it with the small figures from the
Disney Store.
Goody Bags: The bags were just brown paper bags and I wrote the kids' names on them in block lettering - very large and easily recognized (remember - I'm a K teacher!) I made a coloring book for each kid from Disney printouts, stapled them with a coversheet of a picture Joseph colored of himself with Buzz and Woody fighting Zurg, a box of crayons, a fresh lump of purple or green glitter clay, some candy and paper doll puppets I got off the website:
http://disney.go.com/magicartist/play/index.html
Other: I brought out all the Disney CD's and the boom box and played them at full blast. I did get Buzz napkins and plates and a bunch of latex balloons in green and purple - hung all over the back yard. Since there were so many kids, I had them just sit on a large, left-over piece of carpet (we'd just had the inside done!) instead of putting them at a table. For thank-you's I used a template off that same website.
My suggestion to you on games and activities - don't worry about inundating them with the party theme. Just have old stand-bys, very age appropriate and fun games that need little explanation. Have little prizes on hand for everyone even if they don't play and remember to refer to everyone as Ranger all day long! And most important - take pictures and have as much fun as you son has!
