kids

Minnesota Children’s Museum Birthday Party!

July 26, 2017 Kristin, Exploring Domesticity

A Minnesota Children’s Museum Birthday Party is a great way to celebrate your little one and have a great time with less stress!

We just celebrated a Birthday Party at the newly renovated Minnesota Children’s Museum. The kids loved playing, eating in the party room, and the goodies bags. We loved that they took care of the setup and cleanup!

We have had the honor of working with the Minnesota Children’s Museum to help promote their amazing initiative to spread awareness about the Power of Play. As a Play Advocate, we have had the opportunity to attend events at the museum and learn about the importance of play for child development. Recently, we were also able to host a wonderful birthday party for our new 6 year old and friends.

Minnesota Children’s Museum Birthday Party

We have a 4 year old and a 6 year old, and this is the first birthday party we’ve planned outside our home.

As the kids have gotten older and have more friends to invite, we are going to have to start to spend a little more and save our sanity by having it outside the house. This was our first experience with having a party at another location and letting someone else deal with the details and…

we loved it!

The party was a hit with the Birthday Boy and his friends. They never wanted to stop playing at the museum. They also loved the party room and they chowed down on the food and cake.

We loved how easy it was to plan everything, how easy it was to watch all the children, and how beautiful the party room was so fun and bright, and they took care of all the details.

Planning the Party

The first thing we had to do when planning the party was determine a date. Parties are held on Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sundays – with the exception of Target free Sundays.

We chose a Saturday at 1pm, because we figured we could gather the kids and leave for the museum around 11am, play until 1pm, eat and open presents, and then play until 3pm and somehow convince the kids to leave.

We just had a birthday party at the @MNChildMuseum and had the best time! #PlayMoreMN #MN #MNMom

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Party Packages and Food

There are two party packages available. The Monster Celebration Package is totally great and really affordable. For an even larger celebration, the Monster Celebration Plus Package includes more guests, 1.5 hours in the party room, and a personalized cake – which is adorable!

The most fun part about planning the party, was looking at all the great food options. They have a great list of foods! Again, there are packages to choose from, but you can also order from a menu of amazing options. We went with a huge fruit tray (which, now that I think about it, was supposed to include a dip but did not… Obviously, we didn’t miss it.) and a bunch of pizzas.

It worked out great! Everyone loved the pizzas and fruit and we even had leftovers to take home. We also were able to personalize our cake and the Birthday Boy chose marble cake with a chocolate buttercream frosting. It was delicious, and so cute!

The Party

Being in the summer, we sent out email invites. The Minnesota Children’s Museum has printable invites if you are able to mail or handout invitations. It would be nice to have an e-vite option.

We invited two friends from school and, in addition to my husband and myself and our three kids, we invited another family with two adults and two children. We transported our crew with the two additional kids and met the other family at the museum.

Party Arrival

When you arrive, you are directed downstairs from the main check-in spot and there is a locked room where you are able to place your presents and any additional items you bring (we had drink boxes for the kids).

The Birthday Kiddo gets a shirt and everyone gets special stickers for the birthday party. The stickers are different than the regular admission stickers. There are extra special stickers for the party hosts and birthday kiddo. Having the special stickers helped the manager find her way to us throughout the party and introduce herself and make sure everything was going well. It was so nice!

Playing in the Minnesota Children’s Museum

The biggest thing I was nervous about with the party was keeping track of the kids. It’s hard enough to keep track of our two little ones when they get excited and want to go in different directions. With two other kids – who are not our own – I was so nervous I would lose track of them.

Luckily, the museum is set up so that you can stand near the entrance to the different rooms and keep track as the kids are contained. I won’t say it was a piece of cake, because we did have one party-goer who was a wander and got me a little panicked at times!

We let the kids play for almost 2 hours before heading into the party room. They didn’t want to stop playing, but hunger won out.

Minnesota Children’s Museum Birthday Party Room

Walking into the party room got all the kids excited! The bright colors of the walls and the table settings screamed, “party!” It looked so good!

…and we didn’t have to lift a finger!

All of the food was laid out, and they thought of everything. Plates, napkins, and silverware were set up around the table. There were also extras up at the serving table by the food. Next to the cake, they even had a basket with a cake cutter, matches, and 6 candles also in bright colors. In the back of the room there was a station setup with cups and ice water. They even had a CD player and sink back there as well.

The look of the room and having everything set out and cleaned up when we were finished made the whole thing worth any cost. It was much more relaxing than past birthdays.

We were pretty much left alone in the room. The kids served themselves, we served the cake, and everything moved at our own pace. After eating we opened gifts, and the kids were anxious to get back to playing.

Goodie Bags

Another add-on that is available is a Monster Goodie Bag for each kiddo. Normally we probably wouldn’t worry too much about a goodie bag, but the kids were so excited about them and they are really cute.

The bags included a color-changing cup, monster stickers, a monster rubber ducky, monster bubbles, and what I think are finger tattoos.

The kids loved them and they bought us time when we were getting the food all setup.

Minnesota Children’s Museum Birthday Party Overall

After finishing up in the party room, we were able to pack up the food we had leftover and take that home with us. The kids all visited the restrooms and continued playing.

It was so hard to tear the kids away when it was finally time to go! We probably could have spent another hour there, but 4 hours was a pretty good timeline for everyone.

The kids all had a great time. The museum keeps kids entertained at all times, so there wasn’t anyone saying they were bored or looking for something to do. We were able to keep them all in the different areas together and then guide them into the next one. It was great!

The Minnesota Children’s Museum is one of our favorite places, and we have a special love for it after the birthday party was so special!