How to have a party for boys
Firstly, and I cannot stress the importance of this step, enlist some guys to assist in the planning and execution! We got my cousins to help us out and they did a fantastic job…to be quite honest, I think they were also very excited for the party! Also, ensure you enlist enough help. We ended up having 2 kids per adult, which was probably a lot, but it worked out really well.
Secondly, timing is really important, we did 2pm to 5pm, because these are 5-7 year olds and it’s not a time that they should be super hungry or sleepy or really-parent-needy and 3 hours is a totally manageable amount of time.
Picking a theme
Initially we thought that it would be a boys-only type shindig, so we came up with the only natural theme for my boys and their friends – a Superhero party of course, but then we had a few girls who came as fairies and princesses, so in the end it was a superhero/dress-up party, but it all worked out.
We took suggestions from the kids for some other themes, and “pirates” was pretty much the unanimous response!
Choosing activities
Now, here is where things can fall apart…Sid and I thought we could do some crafts with the boys or coloring in their “downtime”, you know, it worked rather well for the tea party. My cousins laughed. Out loud, actually. And then, we decided to just pass over activity planning to them! In the end though, we had a bit of a compromise between crafts and running wild around the house shooting nerf guns at one another.
It was raining, so we had only indoor play… first we divided them into teams, which helped a lot to keep things under control, then they played some sort of made-up game resembling living room hockey, but not quite, then charades, then they had a lego-racers-build-off competition.
There was also “make your own sundae” and a pinata for good measure.
Food and snacks
We kept it super simple and fool-proof… cheese pizza! There were discussions about having healthy snack choices, like broccoli, cucumber and carrot sticks, but in the end, we had chips, cookies and juice. Kids don’t eat that much at parties evidently.
Loot bags
I don’t like loot bags that’s full or stuff that break after 5 seconds, so I totally avoided dollar-store stuff as much as possible. We put candy, of course… kit kats, twizzlers, nibs, smarties, lollipops, rockets (everything was nut-free, as well as in their original packaging), then pencil/sharpener and a hot wheels car. I think it was a good combination of goodies.
We served them the sundaes right at the end of the party! Just in time for their parents… 
