Arjun’s Paw Patrol 3rd Birthday Party

Hi Guys!

I can’t believe our little tornado is 3. I’ve found the last few months particularly heartbreaking as we’ve been so emotionally all over the place and in the blink of an eye he seems to have grown up so much! He has the biggest personality – he’s so helpful, so thoughtful and considerate (most of the time), hilarious with his one liners and come backs, is the sweetest and kindest brother to Saajan and doesn’t feel like a toddler anymore. He feels like a little boy!:(

I’m so anti character themed parties (no idea why!) hence why we picked a jungle theme for his first birthday and a construction theme for his second but this year Arjun picked his own – he asked for a Paw Patrol themed party. How could I refuse? I love that he’s old enough to have an opinion and contribute to decisions. It made planning the whole thing even more exciting as I know how much he loves Paw Patrol!

This is probably the lowest key party we’ve done so far (party planning is my forte and I ALWAYS get carried away!). I used the opportunity to distract me from Saajan’s surgery and pretty much had most things ready before the surgery.

I was extra excited for the day as Arjun now has “proper” friends at nursery and asked for them to also be there. It’s the first time he’d have friends that he’s chosen present – it really hit home just how much he’s grown up. He’d wake up every day and ask me if he’s 3 yet – slow down baby boy, one day you’ll be wishing you could go back!! He was super excited for his party and to have his friends there.

Here are the details:

Decor

Previously, we’ve had to hire a marquee due to the unpredictable British weather! However, this year I was adamant that we wouldn’t be spending an arm and a leg on a marquee and would make do with the extra space we’ve been blessed with through our extension. It also meant I could start decorating earlier – something I was really grateful for given I now have two kids to juggle!

I decided to go with bold and bright Paw Patrol colours as opposed to Paw Patrol decor – simply because it only comes in the three primary colours and that didn’t really appeal to me. I wanted it to be fun loving and vibrant!

We got a balloon arch made for the entrance which featured paw print balloons, a few coloured bunches to scatter and lots of floating cloud balloons (how could I not?!). We used Balloon Kingdom – Susan never fails to deliver!

We also used colourful paper lanterns to decorate the house and the garden. They’re cheap and effective and they really lit the place up. I managed to recycle the green, yellow and orange ones that we used at Arjun’s first birthday which I was pleased about!

The huge foam bone mats were a super lucky find at a store called The Range in Birmingham when visiting family. They were a bargain at £1 each! They were a great filler and brightened up the backdrop and the cake cutting table and went so well with the theme.

I purchased bunting off eBay – lots of it! And we managed to spruce up the garden with it.

I also purchased a Paw Patrol birthday backdrop for the garden for pictures.

I printed the Paw Patrol sayings (if you know, you know!), characters and badges at home on A3 paper.

Food

For those of you that know me, know that displaying the kids food is my absolute favourite part of the whole planning process! A bit sad really!! I’ve enjoyed doing it every single year, but this year has been my favourite by far!

I made our own food labels in the shape of a dog bone and used creative names to label the food (e.g. Paw-tato and Pupcakes!).

I normally use three round tables to display the food but this year I decided to use our dining table and I’m so glad we did! We used a grass like table cover.

I handmade colourful boxes to represent each pup (mimicking their dog bowl patterns) to display the food on. I purchased the sheriff stickers for Chase’s blue boxes from ETSY and also the recycling ones for Rocky’s green boxes and the anchors for Zuma’s orange boxes were also from ETSY. A big thank you to Claire who custom designed them for us! I purchased the clouds for Skye’s pink boxes from eBay and hand drew the bolts on Rubble’s yellow boxes and the ladders on Marshall’s red boxes myself. I absolutely LOVED how they turned out!

I also purchased a few picket fences from Tiger and painted them white to hold the drinks in. They really gave it a cute garden feel. I also purchased two grass and daisy baskets from Tiger to hold the baby pouches in – again they added a really nice touch to the display.

I used dog bowls to hold the food and used paw shaped transfers to decorate them. I purchased the smaller metal shaped bone bowls from Tiger, the split bone bowls from eBay and the smaller round dog bowls from eBay. I’ve since distributed them to our family and friends with pets!

I struggled to find inflatable Paw Patrol characters or cardboard cutouts, so I handmade standup characters for the display myself – it was fiddly but they were so worth it! I’ve been able to reuse them in Arjun’s Paw Patrol themed bedroom too.

I purchased a sky cloud backdrop as the scene setter. I also purchased two paper lantern rainbow hot air balloonswhich Arjun loved!

We used the bone mats and the printed sayings and badges too.

My super creative and talented sister handmade Arjun’s birthday sign as she does every year – it was genius! She has her own business, if you’re interested!

Menu:

This year I didn’t get catered food for the adults. Instead I leaned on the trusty grandmas!

Kid’s Menu and food labels:

Adult food:

Samoseh
Spring rolls
Paneer
Chaat
Dokra
Crisps

Entertainment
I decided to try a different entertainer this year after not being completely satisfied the previous year. My sister in law recommended Froggle Parties and I’m so glad she did! They were superb with communicating prior to the event and John was really great at engaging the children. John made an extra effort to warm the children up prior to starting the main entertainment slot which really helped. The bubble tower went down really well – John fulfilled Arjun’s wishes of being in a bubble tower with his best buddies too and the mums got involved!

We couldn’t have a Paw Patrol themed party without Arjun’s favourite character making an appearance! We hired Chase from Wiggly Woos, what I didn’t know was that there’d be even more entertainment included! They were fantastic value for money and the children had a really great time meeting and greeting Chase.

We decided to hire an ice cream van again this year as it always goes down a treat and it takes care of dessert too! Andy is one of very few ice cream men around that actually charges 99p for a 99!

We hired an adult fun run from Bounce Krazee which the kid’s and adults alike loved. And we also hired a smaller Paw Patrol bouncy castle from Castle Kingdom.

We set up “Rubble’s Construction Zone” using the bits we’d collected from Arjun’s 2nd birthday construction party.

Cake
This year we kept the cake quite simple – Daljit did a great job and the cake was one of the best we’ve ever had taste wise!

Party bags
As usual I got slightly carried away! I decided to get Paw Patrol drawstring bags instead of actual party bags – I figured these would be useful and children could use them – I’ve received so many messages since the party about how much the kid’s love their new bags and they’re being used for all sorts from swimming bags, to nursery bags to toy bags! The party bags consisted of a mixture of the following:

Paw Patrol pencils that I purchased from PoundLand
Paw Patrol reading book from B&M – absolutely brilliant buy at £1 each
Fisher Price colouring books with crayons from PoundLand
Paw Patrol eggs
Paw Patrol chocolate coins
Paw Patrol chocolate lollies
Bubbles
Plastic dinosaur figurines
Heart shaped plastic bangles
Bouncy balls

Costumes

I absolutely loved our costumes this year! They were semi hand made.

Chase: the main star of the show decided on wanting to be Chase. We purchased the costume online.
Rubble: We dressed Saajan as Rubble using a plain white babygrow underneath and I handmade a felt yellow jacket and handmade the badge. His supercute knitted hat was purchased from ETSY.
Marshall: I purchased a plain red gillet for Preetam and purchased a ready made badge and stitched it on. His hat was handmade using a plastic fireman hat, rolled up black card and foil for the torch. The badge was printed at home and the ears were handmade using felt.
Skye: I purchased a plain pink gillet for myself and purchased a ready made badge and stitched it on. I purchased a plain pink alice band and two plastic pink bangles for the base of the goggles, I used foil as the lens and purchased fur for the ears.
Zuma: I purchased a plain orange gillet for my sister Goov and handmade the badge and stitcted it on. We purchased a cycling helmet and printed the badge for the hat at home.
Rocky: I purchased a plain green gillet for my sister Harv and handmade the badge and stitched it on. The cap was a lucky find on ASOS and the badge was printed at home.