Airplane Party - 4 years old - January 2004  Like many 4-year old boys, my son loves airplanes. I asked a local, small airport if we could have his birthday party there in their "terminal."  Although they had never had a birthday party at their airport, they fortunately agreed.  Invitations read like a ticket: "Take Off With Caleb on His Fourth Birthday;" it also had lines for Time of Departure, Destination, Gate, and rsvp to co-pilots mom and dad, as well as a picture of a plane I got from the Internet.  The invitation also mentioned that the flight included lunch and a movie.  When the kids arrived, they were given a pilot hat -- blue crown I made out of oak tag paper decorated with airplane stickers. We had the video "There Goes an Airplane" playing on a big screen, which was educational and engaging.  Then all the little pilots were marched into the hangar for the real thrill: they met a real pilot who gave a brief overview of the airplane and flying, and then, each child was able to sit in a single engine plane for which we snapped numerous photos.  The kids loved looking at the airplanes in the hangar. Afterwards, we had a table for them to make paper airplanes and we read children books about airplanes that I got from the library.  After pizza and cake, each pilot was given a party bag which contained a die cast metal airplane, airplane stickers, and a fruit roll.  Aside from streamers and the party hats, I didn't feel the need to decorate much. The decorations were the dozens of planes the kids saw outside the window of the room we were in! Plus, the terminal contained numerous aviation photographs of local pilots in airplanes.  Because the folks at the airport were so accomodating, we made a small donation.