Need an Indoor Theme Party?? Try Fire Trucks

If your kids have summer birthdays, parties must be soooo easy. (Yes, I'm all grass-is-greener over here.) Watermelon, painting, sprayscapes, bike races, you name it. But try a January birthday in Michigan. My fantasy is that the little pond in our neighborhood will freeze solid, and we'll have an ice-skating party for Son, complete with snowpeople building, hot chocolate and hotdogs...ah...sounds fun, no? The year I was pregnant with him, it froze like that. It was gorgeous. We had mountains of snow. I should know, since in the frenzy of energy that is the last week or so of pregnancy, I shoveled most of it. Son was born on the coldest day of the year. This is not a joke. There is an ice-sculpture contest close by that draws international crowds, and it's always on the weekend closest to his birthday, since that's the coldest weekend of the year here in southeast MI.

And yet, ever since that year (at one day old, I didn't figure he needed the ice skates so much), we've had the lamest winters imaginable. 50 degrees on Christmas. Or beautiful snow that lingers for three days, melts into a slushy mess when the mercury rises to the low 40s, and then freezes into mini ice rinks all over the roads as the deep cold hits. Since I can't count on an outdoor party (no fun if it's -6 degrees, no fun if it's 35 and drizzling, no fun if it's 24 but completely snowless because three days ago it was 39), we're working hard on the indoor concepts right now.

And since I'm too creative (read: cheap) to rent two hours at the bouncy castle places where the kids have an absolutely fabulous time jumping inside enormous inflatables, I'm now on my second year of the indoor theme party at home. Here are highlights from last year's party.

First, we called the local fire station (just two blocks from our house) a few weeks before the desired party date and booked a tour. Tip: check to be sure your fire station offers tours before making any promises to the kids. These tours are normally FREE (ours was), so I took a box of homemade cupcakes as a thank you to the station. The kids were completely fascinated, and the firemen were very patient and thorough. We got to peer into all the doors of the different trucks, learn about the equipment, walk around on the ambulance, and even go into the dark closet and try out the heat-sensing visors.

Of course, the best part for the kids was that they all got to climb up and "drive" the fire trucks. For the Littlest Fireman, who was so delighted to be here at all, this was excitement almost beyond belief. He'd gotten the fireman costume as a Christmas present from his grandparents, and he obviously fit right in. Although we had to let the non-regulation Spiderman boots slide...

Tip: we bought firehats for all the kids as a party goodie...but the fire station passed out hats to everyone when we got there, so we might as well have saved the expense. Check with your station about what their common practice is. (Please note: without talking to the other parents, I didn't want to post pics containing anyone else's kids, so these unfortunately make it look like we are either completely self-absorbed with our own kid or that he had a party by himself. We like to think the former isn't true. The latter certainly is not.)

After the fire station tour, we all trooped back to our house for pizza. Rather than buying firetruck paper plates, napkins, cups, and all the other crazy expensive finery available from Chinet, I went to the dollar store and got a yellow table cloth, shiny red plates, cups, napkins, and cutlery, and several sets of silver and gold plastic fire fighter badges which the kids could wear and take home. Along with yellow noise makers, the fire hats, and a big bowl of oranges, the table looked suitably themed. (Well, it looked firey.) And I only spent about $10 on all the paper products, decorations, and favors (except for the hats, which were $2 each x 5 kids).

We ate pizza from Costco. These are delicious, huge, and very reasonably priced. For about $15, you can buy 2 large pizzas, enough for 8 adults and 6 kids. This means 10 kids and 20 adults still won't break the bank. In the winter, put out some bowls of baby carrots with dip and some clementines, and your party food is all taken care of. Do plan something to do in the 25 minutes it will take you to cook the pizza. For us, all it took was fireman hats and badges, and the kids figured out the rest.

I went for on a fire-truck shaped pan ($10 from Wilton). And I did get to use it twice--once for a jello firetruck to take to daycare for his party day there, and once for the real cake at home. Decorating the cake was surprisingly easier than it looks. The hardest part was making dark red icing. My sister, the awesome baker (you know her as MIQuilter), recommends gel-based professional icing colors (made by Wilton), available at baking supply shops in about a gazillion colors and at places like Jo-Ann's in some basic colors. Or, borrow them from your sister. :-) DON'T try to get good dark colors with the little bottles of liquid food coloring you can get at the grocery store. You'll drive yourself crazy.

Bottom line: a great activity that Son still talks about (and a year is a long time to remember something when you're only 3) at a very reasonable price.

And of course, leftover cake tastes equally good--if not better--the next night while wearing Lightening McQueen jammies and a super-hero cape.

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This year? Rocket ship party. Details coming later in the week...as soon as NASA returns my phone call.