Pretend Sleepover Pajama Party!

When I asked my daughter a few months back what she wanted to do for her 4th birthday she had two requests. She asked for a pajama party at our house with a bounce house.  Easy enough, I thought.  But then it is funny how a simple little party at home can turn into a major event!   But who am I kidding, I love this stuff, so I don’t know who was more excited –  the birthday girl or me. Since jammies were going to be involved, we made it into a sort of pretend sleepover party, as obviously 4-year-olds are too little for the real deal!  It turned out to be a really fun theme, so I wanted to share some ideas.

The first thing we did was whip up the guest list.   We limited it to the girls in her preschool class and close neighbor friends her age, but even with a scaled back guest list, it added up to 22 little pj’d people at our house!  And, she loved every minute!

The Invitation

I found this PERFECT invite called Sweet Sleepover on Tiny Prints.  I took a picture of her on her pillow for the picture. After all the details, at the bottom I wrote: {Bring your pillow and blankie/lovey for our “pretend” sleepover.}

We had it from 4pm – 6pm which worked out well, especially since it was a Friday afternoon, and to me, two hours is the perfect amount of time for 4-year-old attention spans!

The Decor

I had sooooo much fun with the decor!  I guess you can take the weddings out of this former wedding planner, but you can’t take the wedding planner out of the girl!   We didn’t have enough seating for 22 little bodies, so I called Classic Party Rentals in Santa Ana (but they also have other locations in So Cal)  to see if they rented kid-sized tables.  I spoke with Jessie there who was SO helpful and she told me I could rent two 24″ high 6′ long banquet tables.  Perfect. Then she told me about the COLORED CUBES for the kids to sit on!   They were my favorite part.  They come in all different colors and were the perfect height for the kid-tables. LOVED THESE!

I was lucky to find some great plastic tableware from Party City.  Those colorful tablecloths and were on sale for 50% off so they ended up being around $3.50 each.  Then I just bought colorful solid plates and napkins in various super bright colors.

So, my second favorite part of the decor were the  paper lanterns and stars!   Very fun and festive!  My husband just built the overhang pergola for our patio.  It’s not even done yet, but just with the main beams up I looked up and thought – hanging lanterns – hooray!   I went online and found them on Paper Lantern Store for SUPER cheap!  I got light and dark pink in all different sizes, 16 in all and it came to $30.  Not bad.  Small price for big impact.   The the iridescent stars are from Party City and we hung them all with fishing line.

The Centerpieces

I wanted something fun and colorful on the tables, but didn’t want to spend a ton of money.

I thought, what kid doesn’t like a big swirl lollipop?   I found these online at Oriental Trading Company.   For 24 (2 dozen) they came out to around $18 with shipping and everything, so a pretty good deal. Cheaper than buying in the store.

Then I found these different colored buckets for $.99  and shredded paper filler at Party City and bought  floral foam from Michael’s.   It was really easy, you just cut the foam to fit the bucket, then stick in your lollipops and cover the top with the filler.

They ended up being only around $7 / each.   AND THE KIDS went crazy for them!  They started slowing disappearing from the tabletops as the party went on…

Then on either side I put small stuffed animals to fill in the center of the table to go with the pajama party theme.

The Bounce House

Since a bounce house was her #1 request, I had to find a fabulous one.   I have never rented a bounce house before in OC, so I started Googling and located the Princess Bounce and Slide on Orange County Jumpers.  It ROCKED!  If you have the space I highly recommend the bouncers with an attached slide.  I have to admit, I tried it out too, and it was FUN FUN FUN! I was super impressed with this company them from start to finish. There are lots of companies out there, but I have to think this is one of the best bounce house rental companies in OC.  Every time I called someone answered and they were prompt, courteous, helpful and very professional.    The delivery person even called me the morning of to tell me exactly what time they would be there.   And if that wasn’t enough, they even disinfected the entire bounce house when they set it up!  It was love at first antibacterial squirt for this germphobe mom!

The Cake / Cupcakes

So, my friend Melanie from Sensitive Sweets did our fabulous cake and cupcakes.   I sent her the picture of the colors in the tablecloth and told her that we wanted something bright and fun that incorporated stars for our little night-night theme.

You know when you have something in your head that you think will be cute and then you see it in real life and it exceeds your expectations BEYOND?  That is what happened when I picked it up!   It was so beautiful I honestly teared up when I saw it!   Leave it to me to have a cute cake make me cry, but seriously, she put SO MUCH LOVE and time into it, it just really touched me.

She did a 6″ top cake for Emma and then, get this, for EACH child she did their initial on their OWN individual cupcake! So every child got a cupcake made especially for them!   The kids were sooo excited!  I loved, loved, loved this part.  And, if you can believe it, they tasted just as good (if not better!) than they looked! 

The Favors

I sort of geeked out on how excited I was over the favors too!  Honestly I am not a huge fan of party favors because of how most things get opened up and tossed aside.  I think they are sort of be a waste of money in my opinion!

What usually doesn’t go to waste is some sort of yummy parting treat.  So, to finish off our pajama party theme, I did individual goodie bags with a little box of sugar cereal, a Horizons organic chocolate milk and two little mini donuts – chocolate and powered.   The individual milks were from Costco and I got the little boxes of donuts and cereal at Ralph’s.

I put them in cellophane bags and got little Martha Stewart gift tags and star stickers from Michael’s.  On the tags, I wrote “Sweet Dreams” and tied them with a little bow.

So that was our little celebration for our now 4-year-old, and it was a party to remember!  The kids had so much fun bouncing we never even got around to any sort of real “sleepover” ish activity, but it didn’t really matter.   For older girls, though, I think you could do a fun spa-like theme..manis/pedis, etc. and go crazy with this theme.  But for 4-year-olds, give them the go ahead to wear jammies out of the house, a fabulous bouncer, pizza, a big swirl lollipop and donuts to take home, and you have got some pretty satisfied party guests!

Happy party planning! xoxo Jen

{Disclosures! Classic Party Rentals provided me with a discount & Orange County Jumpers & Sensitive Sweets are Tiny Oranges Sponsors.  Tiny Oranges is also a Tiny Prints Affiliate. }