Dinosaur Birthday Party!

There is something that is breathlessly exciting about dinosaurs. We love to imagine these gigantic, powerful prehistoric creatures roaming the earth millions of years ago. Dinosaurs are a great kid's party theme; it has excitement, adventure, the thrill of discovery, and it can be a learning experience too (we won't tell the kid's if you don't). So invite everyone over for this prehistoric celebration!

Dinosaur Birthday Invitations

A personalized dinosaur invitation is a great way to start this dino-mite party! If you want to add something special to the invitation, sprinkle some dinosaur confetti in the envelope. Everyone will be super excited to receive such a unique invitation!

Get the kids involved: You can have the guest of honor help make the invitations. Cut out dinosaur footprints from cardstock or construction paper and write all of the party details on one side. Use fun wording like "You are Invited to a Prehistoric Party" or "Come have a ROAAARing good time!". Then let them add a dinosaur drawing or stickers to the other side of the invitation.

Remember to let the moms know to dress their kids in play clothes! If you party is for a younger crowd 1 1/2 to 2 hours is a good party length. The older the children, the longer the party can be, but for the sake of the parents 3 hours should be your limit. The dinosaurs may have been around for millions of years, but you don't want your party to feel like it is dragging on that long!

Dinosaur Decorations and Party Supplies
Cut out dinosaur footprints from green construction paper and have them lead up to your doorstep, or use colored sidewalk chalk to draw gigantic footprints. A few homemade signs that say "Dinosaur Crossing" and "Don't feed the T-Rex" (with a big bite taken out of it) will be a hit!

Have a CD with jungle sounds playing as your guests enter the party. Hang brown and green streamers from the ceilings and across the doorways to simulate vines in a jungle. You can also use inexpensive fake ivy from the craft store as prehistoric garland.

Fill the room with bunches of green dinosaur balloons. Balloon bouquets are great for your entrance, tables and the corners of the party room. If your party is outside, use balloons around the perimeter of the space to help define the area. Use a mini brontosaurus bean bag as a balloon weight for extra fun!

Here are a few more of our favorite dinosaur decorations:

■ Dinosaurs Giant Wall Decals - big decorations make a big impact
■ Dinosaurs Mylar Balloon - this balloon will really add to the room
■ Dinosaurs Removable Wall Decorations - love the dino footprints

Dinosaur Birthday Party Table and Menu
Dinosaur paper goods will help you set a fun, prehistoric party table that will be easy to clean up! At each place setting have a card with a short fun fact about dinosaurs. The kids will love sharing their new-found knowledge with each other! If you are going to have more than one table, name them after the periods of the Mesozoic Era, and maybe include a few fun facts about which dinosaurs lived in which periods -

■ Triassic Period - About 251 to 205 million years ago - Ichthyosaurs, Iguanadon and Plateosaurus ■ Jurassic Period - About 205 to 141 million years ago - Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, and Allosaurus
■ Cretaceous Period - About 141 to 65 million years ago - Triceratops, Ankylosaurus, and Tyrannosaurus rex
Not only will it make a great decoration, but it will be an opportunity for learning!

Simple table decorations are easy with this dinosaur centerpiece. If you really want to go all out make a paper mache volcano for your centerpiece, science fair style! Just make sure the kids are all gathered to see it "erupt"! A personalized dinosaur water bottle label at each place setting is a fun touch as well!

For the menu serve food that the kids will like but give them fun dinosaur inspired names -
■ Fossilized Fries
■ Cretaceous Chicken Fingers
■ Paleontologist Pizza
■ Volcano Veggies with Lava Dip (add a touch of red food coloring to ranch dip)
■ Stegosaurus Snack Mix
And for dessert serve this tasty treat -

Dinosaur Dig Dirt Cups
■ Fill clear plastic glasses or dinosaur cups 2/3 of the way with chocolate pudding.
■ Mix in a few dinosaur gummy snacks into the pudding.
■ Top the pudding with crushed Oreo cookies.
■ Add a few more gummies to the top of the cup.
■ Refrigerate until serving.
You can include a dinosaur theme birthday cake too. Add a dinosaur and volcano cake topper to a sheet cake and you are all set! All your little omnivores will love this dino-inspired meal!

Dinosaur Birthday Party Games and Activities
Fill a plastic pool with play sand and let the kids dig for "dinosaur bones" and fossils. Make them ahead of time with craft clay. Give each child a plastic pail and a shovel, and one of those really inexpensive tiny paint brushes. They will have a great time playing paleontologist! You can even place a dinosaur sticker on some of the bones, and let the kids trade them in for small prizes like candy, dino squirt toys, bubbles, chalk or dinosaur tattoos.

A dinosaur piñata is another fun activity. Fill it with plastic dinosaur noses and fun sized candy.

If you have a young group a fun yet quiet activity is to have the kids color dinosaur coloring sheets. Buy a few dinosaur coloring books, or Purchase & print out these coloring sheets we created for you:
■Dino Coloring Sheets

You can also play classic kids games with a dinosaur twist. What about "Fossil, Fossil, Dinosaur" instead of "Duck, Duck, Goose"? Or "Hot Potato" with a dinosaur egg? Here are some other fun Kids Birthday Party Games.

Dinosaur Birthday Party Favors
Pith hats make a great dinosaur theme party favor. Hand them out before you start your dinosaur dig so the kids can feel like real paleontologists.

Another great party favor is a personalized dinosaur candy bar. It matches the personalized invitations and ties the theme together. Another tasty party favor are personalized dinosaur mint tins. You can't go wrong with sugar!

Or go with a dinosaur favor box filled with favors -

■Grow Your Own Dinosaurs
■Dinosaur Bitty Bucket
■Dinosaur Sticker Sheet

Don't forget that you will be sending your guests home with larger than life memories of this dino-mite birthday party!

Mother's Day Brunch for 100

Mother's Day is May 9, 2010 this year. Are you helping your church or organization plan a Mother's Day Brunch? Here are a few Buffet food calculations & recipes that everyone will enjoy & there will be plenty of food for everyone.

Decorate the buffet table with plenty of flowers too.
After your Buffet.... give each mom a custom Hershey Candy Bar as a great mother's day favor!

Festive Family Brunch for 100... from Ellen's Kitchen Website

MENU PLANNING ..
This is the planned menu, and the actual amount consumed by 78 people, ranging in age for 2 to 82, including a dozen athletic teenagers and young 20-somethings, who ate like locusts. We had a number of pans of various food left over which went into various people's freezers, were made up in to "doggie bags," etc.

Ellen's note: Geri's quantities would be fine for 100 normal eaters.

Appetizers - (served for about 1 1/4 hours)
Meatballs (140 count)
B-B-Q sausage slices (3 pounds)(Geri notes she would increase to 6 pounds- Little smokies or cocktail sausages are another option)
Spirals (slices of lavash, wraps, whatever you call them, purchased from Costco) (60 pieces)
Mini-quiche lorraine (60 pieces)
Sausage balls (75) (Bisquick recipe, made at home)(could have used 150)
Mini muffins (3 dozen)
Fruit tray (small, the type the deli says is for 10-12 people)
Veggie tray (same, less than 4 pounds total)
Cheese cube tray (3 pounds total)
Deviled egg spread (1 gallon) w/ crackers (3 pounds)
Spinach dip (1 gallon) w/ party pumpernickel (2-3 pounds)
(There were also chips, pretzels, nuts, etc. around, virtually untouched)

Main table and entrees
Green beans almondine (1 3/4 # 10 cans, approximately 1 1/2 gallons)
Cold pea salad (4 pounds frozen peas)
Cream cheese date-pecan strata (tripled a 9x13 recipe, baked and served in 2 half-steamer pan- could have used more) Recipe follows!
Chicken tetrazini (3/4 of a half steamer pan) Recipe follows!
Impossible breakfast pie (spinach/cheddar) (a half-steamer pan) Recipe follows!
Impossible breakfast pie (sausage/cheddar) (a half-steamer pan) Recipe follows!
Hash brown Potato casserole (2 half-steamer pans full) Recipe follows!
Platter of various smoked, pepper, honey roasted, etc. turkey (this was virtually untouched)
Rolls and butter (also virtually untouched)

Ellen's note: If this had been a coffee cake or sweet rolls, more might have been eaten.

Beverages
Orange Juice (6 1/2 gallons)
Champagne (1 case, served mostly as mimosas in pitchers to adults, since we had two cases, we could have "pushed" it more)
One 2 liter bottle of each - cola, diet cola, sprite, ginger-ale
1 gallon iced tea (sweet tea)
Coffee (maybe 50 cups?)(1 pound)
Decaf coffee (maybe 15 cups)
(1/2 & 1/2, sugar, 3 varieties artificial sweeteners, shakers of cocoa and cinnamon, and a bottle of Italian flavoring syrup, can't recall the flavor)
Hot Tea (a dozen cups, tops, many varieties offered, English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Amaretto, plain old Lipton's)
Milk (1 1/2 qts)

Dessert
Purchased sheet cakes (less than 1/2 sheet was actually eaten, but they were GREAT cakes, Costco, and we enjoyed them for the next week)
Also, cookies, brownie bites, etc. virtually untouched

This menu may seem redundant, with a lot of sausage, too many nuts, a lot of eggy-cheesy stuff, but the things offered for variety (veggies, fruit, lean meat,) were little used.

The items people would have eaten more of, or asked for the recipes for the most (although literally every recipe was requested by at least two people,) were the cream cheese and date strata, the B-B-Q sausage (embarrassingly easy,) and the sausage balls.

For more set up instructions & some recipes... be sure to go to Ellen's Kitchen site

Party Food Calculator

Ever wonder just how much food you need for your next party?
Well... here are a few tips from www.candybarwrap.com that may help you.

Party Food Calculator

The question of party food quantities to prepare for your guests is as old as hospitality itself. Party food planning is only a little trickier, though. As you will see, there are several different ways to look at it, but the main answer is:

1 Pound Of Food Per Person For Snacks
1 1/2 Pounds Of Food Per Person For A Meal

Those are averages figured in between the linebackers and the little dainties. We will break them down into averages for particular kinds of parties and party foods.

Appetizers: On average, your guests will consume 5 hors d’oeuvres per person per hour for the first 2 hours and 3 per person per hour for each additional hour. So for a 3-hour long party of 10 people, you will need to prepare about 130 appetizers, a little less if the party is to be followed by a meal.

Dips: Add the total weight of the main ingredients and use the 1 to 1 1/2 pounds per person rule.

Pizza: Adults & Teens… average 3 slices per person. Younger children allow 2

Here is an excellent large-quantity party food planning site you may want to refer to for company barbecues, weddings, etc.