On airport trips to pick up their grandmother, twins Brady and Logan would peer out the windows of their mother’s minivan to get a glimpse of the airplanes flying overhead. “Is Nana in there?” they’d ask, and would label each a “good guy plane” or a “bad guy plane.” With the boys making airport runways out of living-room pillows, mother Melinda knew that an airplane-themed party for the twins’ third birthday was in order. With the help of friend and Giggles Galore blogger Mariah Leeson, they pulled together a B&L Airlines party with decorations and treats to take the boys and party guests through the entire flight experience.
With $150 in the budget, Mariah printed signs and cards from a digital party package and assembled them into table centerpieces and banners. She added red airplanes and old-fashioned lettering to the décor, using a Cricut machine, and set up a fanciful tablescape with PVC pipes covered with a tablecloth and sewn-on clouds made from white batting and bulletin-board paper. “In-flight meals” were set inside an opened vintage suitcase for easy access. Mariah topped simple white cupcakes with airplanes and stuffed batting into the bottom of the cupcake stand for a cloud effect.
On white serving platters, she fashioned “propeller pops” from marshmallows dipped in dyed chocolate and placed dessert-filled paper suitcases around each table’s “Please Remain Seated” sign. The boys helped blow up the balloons that morning, and when they awoke from their pre-party nap, they found their house had been transformed into an airport. “When the boys saw the decorations, they kept jumping up and down and asking, ‘My party? My party?’” Mariah says.
As guests arrived, the boys’ father – dressed as an airline pilot – took the kids on a tour of the party stations. The little passengers played pin the propeller on the plane, folded paper planes at a craft station and made airplanes out of wooden clothespins and Popsicle sticks. Outside, the kids buzzed around like airplanes and played dress-up with pilot hats a friend loaned from his days in the airline industry.
For days afterward, the boys raved about the party and protested when the temporary airport was finally dismantled, Melinda says. Now when planes from the nearby airport fly low over their back yard, she can hear the boys say, “I wish I could fly.”
