My son's third birthday fell at the onset of the 2004 Summer Olympics, so it seemed the obvious choice. We were inviting a lot of kids and all of their family members, so I made five 9 round
cakes - one red cake with red icing one blue cake with blue icing one green cake with green icing and one black cake with black icing (though the top of each was white icing - except for the
1" edge around each was it's appropriate color to look like rings) - and fitted them together on a big tray like the Olympic rings and covered the whole thing in tiny flags from all over
the world that I got for $2 from a flag web site. I also made round butter cookies each one decorated with icing of one of the Olympic colors. And I cut a huge watermelon into a fruit salad
holder and also decorated that with the little country flags. The tablecloth was stars and stripes. The party invitations were just postcards - color copies of originals I made on
construction paper - one side was a big torch next to which I had written "Please join us to Celebrate Nicholas' 3rd birthday and the onset of the Olympics" and the date and time
and the other side was the info about where and how to get there and left me space to write in the invitees' name and address and to place a stamp.
For party favors I bought small (5 x 8 1/2") handled bags at the party store each one the color of one of the Olympic rings. And on each affixed a 2 x 4" sticky mailing label on which I wrote the child's name and drew in the Olympic rings. And on the other side I affixed an American flag. Inside was an American flag gold medal chocolates a plastic gold medal a coach's whistle some bouncy balls painted like sports balls and other things like that - all available at the local party store and very inexpensive. We played tons of games but none that required a winner: for one we filled dozens of water balloons before the party started and let the kids hurl them at targets (and each other and their parents!) that we'd drawn with chalk on the fence in the backyard and each kid got a plastic gold medal on a red white and blue ribbon every time they participated."
