I love birthday parties. We never do any huge bash, but we make the day fun and memorable for the honoree of the day. I’ve made the birthday cakes for each of our kids’ birthdays every year except when Nicholas turned six. He wanted an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen that year.

I’m no professional cake decorator, but I enjoy choosing a special pan, baking the cake, and decorating it. Usually we have the party theme revolve around whatever the cake looks like. For example, when Nicholas turned three he had a tractor cake and a farm-themed birthday party.

Here are some of the parties we’ve done over the years:

• Army theme with soldier cake – James’ third
• Star Wars – Nicholas’ fourth
• Bob the Builder – James’ second
• Dinosaurs! – Nicholas’ fifth and James’ fourth

I’ve loved all the parties we’ve had for the kids, and I loved all my birthday parties growing up but I guess my favorite birthday memories are from the two years that I had water balloon fight parties when I turned nine and ten. My birthday’s in May, which lends itself to outdoor parties much more than Nicholas and Robert’s birthdays in December. Two years in a row, I invited all my girl friends from school to my party and told them to wear their bathing suits. We spent the afternoon filling up water balloons and throwing them at each other. It was so much fun!

The last few years I haven’t felt extremely creative or motivated to get creative on the kids’ birthday parties. It seems like we’ve really slacked off on the fun factor, but I’ve found a solution. Celebrations.com has got tons and tons of party ideas – not just birthday parties but any kind of party you can imagine (Christmas parties, baby showers, even wine tasting parties).

But of course I’m all about kids’ birthday parties!

From dinosaurs to butterflies to Hollywood, they have tons of fun party decorations and theme ideas. They have basics like cake and frosting recipes along with instructions for pulling together great themed birthday parties – right down to directions for making your own invitations. If you need help with ideas for games that the kiddies can play, they’ve got that too!

I wish I’d found their first birthday party ideas before Robert turned one last month. They’ve got gift ideas and themes especially for a baby’s first birthday. How about a Dr. Seuss party?

Best of all, as far as I can tell, everything on Celebrations is free to use. I love it!