What do you do when you want to start small? For our youngest's 4th birthday we wanted to invite friends from his day care but not feel like we had mortgaged the house. We did a "Saturday at the Movies" theme. We invited family and about half a dozen of his friends from school and their families (remember at this age parnets are not comfortable dropping off the kids) out for ice cream and a movie. We picked a theme from an upcoming kids movie. We had everyone meet early for ice cream.  Then took the group to the movie. We did movie related gift bags too.  Worked great - parents who wanted a few hours for "adult time" appreciated the setting and parents that wanted family time for a movie enjoyed.