3rd Birthday Theme help

I hate that I've turned into this person, but that's what parenting is, I guess.

We're having a huge 3rd birthday party for the boys. We are traveling to our home state (where ALL of our extended family is) and having it at a small natural history/science place. My primary motivation for this is to keep everyone out of my house (DH's parents and my parents are all divorced/remarried etc). We figured just going down there would be easier in the long run, plus then we can have some of our friends and their kids come!

Long story, sorry. Anyway, the boys' interests have widened in the last 6 months or so, and I don't have the "one" thing to base their party on. They like all the transportation things (cars, trucks etc) but I'm wondering if I should try to match the theme of the museum (it has a bunch of local animals like bobcats, snakes etc). Or do I really not need a theme and I'm simply being silly. Do I need a theme? If so, please just tell me what to do, because I am SO not good at this kind of thing

 

I don't think you need a theme. I think you just need to have fun! All that matters is that you are as stress free as possible and they enjoy their party. Who cares if it matches or not, if they like cars, do a car theme, or just do a simple cake and some little gift bags for the kiddos. It only has to be as elaborate as YOU want it to be. I think the most important thing is for you to enjoy your time with your birthday boys and your family. The less you have to do, the more enjoyment you will get out of it. My personal opinion is let the boys pick what they want, even if it is two different things, then just design your party around their choice, regardless if it matches the museum or not. Hope you all have a wonderful birthday celebration!!

 

We have twins and another one 11 months younger (they are 3 and she's 2 right now). Since that's 3 birthdays within a month and we have family that travels in we have their "big party" in between their actual birtdays and next year my plan is to do a balloon theme, I saw a super cute cake that I can easily make and then each one will have their own color and their cakes will be balloon shaped. Then on their actual birthday they get to pick whatever they want and we just do a cake and smaller family stuff.

Last year we did a farm theme and each one got to pick their own farm animal, it didn't come together the way I hoped but I guess that's my own fault. I do not think you need a "theme" but just colors to bring it together is usually what I go for. If you want to go for transportation let them choose their favorite and do 2 cakes to make it easy if you don't do that already (as opposed to merging the two I'm thinking!) Then focus on a couple of colors and maybe solids for the plates and such? Really, my goal is to focus on the cake because that's the pictures we keep and look at! That's my 2 cents!

 

I would ask them what they want, and keep it simple. I asked my guys what they wanted for their birthday, and the only things they said were "a cake with Lightning McQueen on it" and "a cake with a tractor on it", so I got them small cakes decorated with their choices and let that be their "theme". They loved it!

 

I did same thing as Valerie. My DS into Superman, so his cake was with Superman theme, and my DD into hello Kitty, so her cake had kittys all over it.
We had bouncy house at the party and kids kids spent most (would say 80%) of time jumping.Biggest hit!
Good luck!