Childrens birthday party!! Help

My sons first b-day party was awesome. I had it at my church so that there would be plenty of room and of course had to get some of my family members to assist me in the different things going on. In the hallyways I had set up different tables with a duckie game where you pick and duck and you get a prize determined by the number on the bottom of the duck. I also set up a table with coloring books and a little furthur down the hall i set up an area for the smaller kids to play with random toys, balls, bubbles etc, oh yea and I did face painting something easy to paint like we did smiley's since my sons party was smiley faces. And last but not least I set up a table of different kinds of refreshments for the adults to snack on while the kids played. After all that we cut the cake and hung-out for a little while but trust me you don't want to make this party go on for 3 hours after about the first 30mins you are going to be wiped out trying to please everyone so make sure you enlist some family memebers to help you with things.

Throwing the party at the beach or playground sounds like a great idea because, when you get a bunch of kids together, they'll be running around a lot. As for the theme, how about one of your son's favorite cartoon characters? Also, a pinata with candy inside is always fun for kids...they like hitting with sticks. Give them time to run around and work off some of their energy, give them some food, open the gifts and then do the cake. It's pretty straight forward when you're dealing with small children.