It was early fall and my toddler son was standing in the kitchen wearing heather gray sweatpants and an olive green T-Rex T-Shirt, which hung a little loose over his tiny torso.
A box of Krispy Kreme donuts sat on the countertop nearby, half open. I grabbed a one, handed it to him and joked that it was going in the dinosaur’s “tummy,” not his.
It was a simple moment, but one that spawned the idea an idea for an illustration project, Rumble, Rumble Roar, a book chronicling a morning in the life of a donut-crazed T-Rex. I finished the project before Christmas, and even though I haven’t even attempted to publish the book, it is a favorite around our house and it inspired the theme for my son’s birthday party.
I wanted to recreate the book for our guests, to bring them into the story. To do this, I would draw dinosaur footprints on the sidewalk, place large clumps of light-pink foam on the nearby grass (to look like strawberry donut icing), create a three-dimensional donut shop sign and mount it to a porch column, make fake donuts out of quick-dry clay, create centerpieces that looked like scattered and spilled coffee in cracked cups, and build a paper dinosaur that appeared to bust through the bay window in the kitchen. Oh, and I would add a temporary, paper awning inside the house. OK, so yes, a little over-the-top.
I was moving forward with this plan when I took an impromptu trip to a store called Five Below (no promo). I stepped inside and was overwhelmed by all that was around me. On one wall, a towering cache of donut and sprinkle-themed party supplies, on another, a T-Rex dinosaur pinata alongside a slew of Minecraft gear. There it was in one place, all that I needed to throw a Rumble, Rumble Roar party for my son.
It would have been foolish, I thought, to miss this opportunity to make things easy on myself. So I proceeded with a new plan, a store-bought plan, one that would save my sanity and allow me to give my son a nice enough party.
