Airplane Theme Party Ideas

An airplane themed birthday party is perfect for young kids and easy to host

Henry turned five on May 16, and I think that's when the shift officially starts: when birthday parties start being for and about the child instead of the parents. I wrote this post on Henry's first birthday party four years ago, and this one on Otto's lumberjack themed first birthday party. Without question, those parties were for us as parents! Sure, there were kids there. But we had friends over who didn't even have kids stop by too, and plenty of food and alcohol for all. The parties were so much work that I vowed I wouldn't throw another big party until my child was old enough to ask for one and tell me who they wanted to invite. Well, low and behold, Henry asked for a party this year, and also had names of his friends at school whom he wanted to invite. He met my criterion for hosting a party! Since the boy loves airplanes, we decided to host it at an airplane museum and make it airplane themed. These are all the airplane themed party ideas we implemented for his fifth birthday bash. *affiliate links used*

I definitely did NOT want all these kids (we had about 50 people show up to this party) running around my house. In mid May in Texas, it could be either hot or rainy or both or have just rained, making our backyard a mud pit... And then all those rascals would track mud all over my house! Nope, I'm a fan of hosting a party at a location. Sure it's a tad more expensive, but you don't need to clean before or clean up after, and that's a major win in my book. We picked out the plane museum at Dallas Love Field because they have a play area for the kids to run off all the sugar. It's indoors so it can rain or be 95 and humid or both. His friends could bring their siblings and they'd have fun too - I absolutely can't stand it when a birthday party invitation is only for the child listed and no siblings can come, but parents are expected to stay and monitor their child! What are we supposed to do with the siblings?! Obviously, with four kids close in age, we can't attend those parties and it makes all family members welcome to any party we host, because we understand the struggle.

Cloud balloons

Airplane balloons

Something that was cool about the flight museum was that we could still be in charge of decorations. This is great because 1) it keeps costs down. Ever notice how expensive those "all inclusive" packages are at various children's play areas? Sure it's nice to not *have* to do anything but write a check but holy cow, they pan out to like $50 a head per kid for a slice of pizza and a piece of dry cake. No thanks. 2) we got to keep creative control over what decorations were used so that Henry's personality could come out. In an Amazon Prime age, it's easy to find affordable decorations for whatever party theme you want, and find just the style you're looking for too.

Here are links to the stuff we picked out:

plates napkins, cups and flatware (I'd also recommend getting additional plates and napkins as people use more than one of those!)

cloud balloons
airplane balloons

party favor bags
favors for the party bags - little airplane gliders
photo props/table decorations
Our cake and cookie designer (if you live in Dallas, use her - she is absolutely fabulous!)

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The airplane theme was fun for a 5 year old birthday party, and the location was great! I highly recommend hosting a party AT a location instead of at your house if you want to keep messes down. When you can bring in all your own decorations, food and cake, it also helps to keep the costs down.