Lil J's 3rd: Games and gifts

This round, we kept the activities simple as usual, since we figured the kids would be happy to be left to their own devices (which turned out to be the case). Since the party was a vehicle/construction theme, we set up a drawing station where the kids could sit and do up their own little city/road scene. We provided construction paper, vehicle stickers and colour pencils, and it helped to keep the kids occupied while we waited for the other guests to arrive.

We also played a simple game (I hardly had time to plan for games, since Baby J was sick for the few days before the party. Remind me to start planning earlier next time!). Almost all the construction themed games I thought of involved sand (think construction site!), which was a no-no indoors. I ended up telling the kids to pretend they were cranes, and giving them magnets tied to chopsticks. They were supposed to lift out vehicles from the "construction site", which was filled with crepe paper. The vehicles were either little metal cars (which came with the magnets, and were purchased from Popular), or construction vehicles printed onto construction paper and cut out, with a paper clip attached. The kids were allowed to bring back their fishing rods as well as whatever they caught, and I think the game got pretty intense! At the end of the party, Junior J and Lil J took off with the box of crepe paper and I found them pretending they were otters playing amidst seaweed!

As for the party packs, we bought all the kids buckets and sand toys from Daiso (since digging is construction related right?), as I thought those were less gender specific and pretty useful. We also threw in various types of snacks. We opted not to include a drink since one of our friend's kids did not like the usual drinks like Ribena and Milo.

So that's that for Lil J's 3rd. His birthday usually marks the start of the crazy festive period for the family, since we are looking at three birthdays in Dec along with Christmas, followed up by Junior J's birthday in January and then Chinese New Year. So I better start planning for the Baby J's birthday which would be up next!