I've just returned from a 6-year-old boys' birthday party at the local sports complex. You're likely familiar with this kind of venue: an indoor turf under the dome that also happens to house a human-sized hamster cage and laser tag zone. It was a beautiful day here today, and I was trapped inside a musty-smelling, windowless facility with a bunch of sweaty, red-faced kids.

Not that I begrudge the mom for holding her son's party there. Who among us isn't willing to pay through the nose to not have kids trampling on our begonias in the backyard or spilling juice on our new living room carpet? For five years, I have had my sons' birthday parties in the backyard. Since both of my boys were born in June—and generally have the same group of friends—it's been relatively easy to combine their parties into one big neighborhood bash.

This year my boys turn 4 and 6 and for some reason (sanity check, perhaps) I decided I'd rather not endure the aggravation or hassle of planning and hosting a backyard party for half the neighborhood. I had decided to split with the cash and hold their party elsewhere. Little did I know I was completely out of my league. Almost every place I called earlier this week was booked solid for June. Apparently good moms book their kids' parties six months in advance.

Once I accepted the party would have to take place in the backyard (again!), I started racking my brain for new themes, games, activities, etc. My boys are into different things: Backyardigans and Star Wars, for example. Not exactly two themes that go together. Can you see Queen Tasha holding a light saber?

I decided to check out a few kids' party planning sites. First stop: Peppers and Pollywogs. This site was launched by mom, author, and party planner Lisa Kothari. The site features a nice mix of themes, searchable by age and occasion. For the 5-10 set, the recommended parties are linked to popular movies: Speed Racer, Indiana Jones, and Iron Man. While these may seem obvious, there are some great suggestions for games and activities. In my experience, that's always a mom's greatest challenge when throwing a home-based party. How the heck do you keep the little angels entertained? (My rule: keep the party to 90 minutes).

Next stop: FamilyFun. There are more ideas on this site than I had time to read through. I stopped on the feature for a backyard carnival once I saw the home-made ticket booth. It's unlikely I'd ever find the time to pull that off, but I could certainly order tickets and prizes from Oriental Trading Company. The list of suggested carnival activities also seemed scalable with the help of a few neighborhood mother's helpers: face painting, ball toss, guess the number of jelly beans in the jar.

As I sat to write this post, I remembered my friend Christine recently blogged about her daughter's Groovy Color Party and included all the step-by-step instructions with links to where to buy the materials. Over at Kaboose, you'll find printable coloring pages for invitations and fresh ideas for a pizza party that includes a dough toss and pizza box folding race.

Now that I've spent several hours scouring the Internet for birthday party ideas, I better get to work on the invitations. June 14 is right around the corner!