Cookout- 11 years- i couldnt figure out what to do for my birthday when i tured 11 so i decided to go simple and have a cookout/sleepover. all my friends had a blast! First of all, haveyour friends lay out their sleeping bags right when they arrive to get the party started. dont allow anyone to sleep on a couch or in a more comfortable place because it may cause fighting. i learned that from personal experience. INVITATIONS- i just called the parents to make it easiest. DECORATIONS- the tablecloth was red and white checkered like we were at a picnic and we had streamers of all colors and balloons everywhere. we decided to do it in my porch to feel the warm air in July. We also had little bowls of muchies on the tables. we put the gifts inside a huge picnic basket to make it fit the theme. CAKE- i had a cake shaped like a hotdog made from a loaf of plain cake, icing, and twinkies to for the hotdog. yellow and red icing for ketchup and muctard. we also had slices of cake with red icing inside fry containers from mcdonalds as fries. ACTIVITES- we played old-fashioned games in my backyard nothing fancy. we played a relay where eahc team has a bucket of balloons. tyhe first person runs with a balloon dow to a marker and pops it in any way without sitting on it. and runs back (this continues until everyone has gone) the first team to pop all of their balloons wins. CHEF CLOTHING- each team had a player stand at the other end of the yard and they also had a bucket full of clothes such as a chef hat, aprons, pants, spatula,ect. they had to run down and dress the chef on the other end but the catch was that the chef couldnt lift their body. the dresser had to do it for them. the first team to complete their outfit on their chef wins. we played many other relays with giant sponges, and we played WATER BALLOON VOLLEYBALL where theres a net and there are partners holding a towel. two on each side of the net. two people holding each towel. the towel had a waterballoon in it and the partners had to throw the balloon over to another pair of partners without it popping or dropping into their towel. this game was my favorite.  after all the games it was time to open gifts. everyone drew a number to tell the order they were opened to make it fair. then we had hamburgers straight from the grill. each person got to choose if they wanted a hotdog or a hambuger made by my dad along with a soda and chips. it was then time to eat my hotdog cake.We watched a movie in our sleeping bags and  everyone had ziplocs full of popcorn of their own.  FAVORS- for my favors i wanted something unusual. i went to the dollar store and bought this pack of gummy foods. there were sour fries, gummy hamburger and hotdog, gummy doughnut and gummy coke. there was one of each for a dollar in a little package. i gave everyone their own package and then also with other candy and gum and stuff.   i hope this helped you have an idea of what to do for your birthday. u can think of your favorite games to play at your party to add to my list. this was my favorite party by far.