All Things Entertainment provides clowns, TV characters, superheros, princesses, and entertainers of all kinds - balloon twisting, face painting, magic, games, and more - for birthdays, schools, and family events.

ALL-4-FUN specializes in providing entertainers, extreme sports, and state-of-the-art inflatable games for corporate events, company picnics, school functions, bar mitzvahs, special events, conventions, weddings, reunions, birthday parties, and other events.

Alleyoop, AKA Al Hirsch, has been entertaining and educating children for more than 30 years and has won two Parent's Choice awards for his children's music recordings. He's a storyteller, musician, puppeteer, historian and much more, and offers a wide variety of programs for children of all ages.

Andrew's Playroom is an indoor play center and party place specifically designed for kids ages nine months to five years.

Facilities include clubhouses, a play hut tunnel system, a pretend market, kitchen, and garage, toddler basketball, golf, bowling, board games, and activity books.

Baby Power Forever Kids offers preschool classes, parents' night out programs, birthday parties, and parent/child play and enrichment classes.

Looking for something big yet easy for your next birthday party or child's event? Bouncy House rents cool-looking bouncies - a castle, dinosaur, monster truck, and more - by the hour.

Local delivery, setup, and take down are included in the price, and (a plus in our area) the inflatables can be used rain or shine. See the website for pictures and a price table.

We rented a bouncy house for a party (in 2004), and were impressed with the company's rates, on-time delivery, quick setup, and prompt teardown. The children at the party loved the activity; we wouldn't hesitate to rent again.

Clowns Unlimited offers entertainment for birthday parties and special events. Services range from a single clown to multiple clowns, magicians, inflatables, and interactive rides.

Clowns Unlimited travels anywhere in the greater Seattle area. Prices increase according to travel distances.

Cookies carries everything you need to bake a batch of everyone's favorite sweet treat from start to finish. Owners Caryn and Betsey have packed the small store with high-quality spices and flavorings; chocolates, dried fruits, and nuts; a well-chosen selection of baking utensils; a wall of cookie cutters; a dazzling selection of colored sugars and sprinkles; and useful sundries like meringue powder and food coloring.

If you have kids at home, you'll find plenty here to please them. The store carries a selection of ginger- and shortbread cookies in seasonal shapes and ready-made royal icing for last-minute cookie decorating sprees. Just grab a couple of small packets of sprinkles and go! Cookie kits, food coloring markers (easy to handle for little hands), children's utensil sets, and tools to make decorating with kids easier (narrow squeeze bottles for icing) are also displayed around the store.

For easy birthday party entertainment, ask about the store's cookie package. Come in and choose a cookie cutter to match your party theme. You'll get back baked cookies, (about three per child), royal icing, and decorating supplies, all packed in a box and ready for decorating.

Cookies also hosts periodic drop-in cookie decorating opportunities for kids (and grownups) during holidays, and seasonal decorating classes - most for adults, but an occasional class for kids - at the store. If you gather up eight or more friends, you can schedule a private decorating class. See our calendar for details, or contact the store.

David's Party Trains owner David Carlson has train parties available in the local area. He offers several different types of train parties.

The Riding Train is on rubber tires and travels through your neighborhood with adults and children aboard. Parties are three hours and suitable for all ages ($345).

If you enjoy bouncers, David says he has the best. Choices include the choo-choo jump-n-slide - with water in warm weather - with a ladder and slide and a separate exit area ($300). David's large electric trains run indoors or out - even in the rain. The track size is custom fit to the available area ($275).

Race cars are a hit with any age. David offers 1/25 scale slot car sets for $225.

Other party options include: two 15x15 inflatable bouncers (castle and a train) for $195, face painting ($100), and balloon twisting ($75(.

Discounts are available for orders of more than one item: 15% off the price of the second item ordered and 25% off the price of the third item.

illustriddler provides face painting for birthday parties, picnics, school carnivals, and other events. Art for the full face, "just cheeks," arms, or wrists is available.

Frank Dunn Magician performs magic for birthday parties and other magical events. He has been performing for over 25 years. His magic show includes live doves and he makes animal balloons.

Kimmy's Kloset provides children's entertainment for all types of events and occasions throughout the Seattle Metro area (or outside the area with a travel fee). A vast array of characters are available including Kimmy the Clown, the Conductor from Thomas the Train, Daphne from Scooby Doo, the Disney Princesses, Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Dora the Explorer, and many more. Character appearances include a magic show, story telling, face painting, and balloons. Parties for fewer than 12 children can also include games.

Kimmy's Kloset also offers dress-up theme parties for all ages, which include costumes, face painting, balloon art, and games.

Kimmy's Kloset also provides singing telegrams.

We hired Kimmy as Ariel the Mermaid for our daughter's seventh birthday party, and the children were mesmerized by her performance and thrilled with their painted faces.

Magic Joe is a well-rounded professional magician, whose polished routines include stage performances, close-up magic, stroll around magic, and kids' shows. He has performed for Bill Gates, the Mariners, the Seahawks, and the Sonics. He is wonderful with kids and can perform for birthday parties, assemblies, fundraisers, or any other event where a magician makes sense.

Birthday party packages include the Standard Magic Show (30-minute show, audience participation, souvenirs); the Deluxe Magic Show (45-minute show, audience participation, free prizes and gifts, birthday child package, magic trick taught to the kids); and the Premium Magic Show (1-hour show, plus everything in the Deluxe Magic Show and magic using live doves that the kids can meet and pet).

Noah's Ark "Stuff-n-Fluff" Animal Workshops come to your birthday party or event, and guests can make their own stuffed animals to take home.

Guests choose unstuffed teddy bears or other animals and hand stuff them. Then they "wish upon" and insert rainbow stars, and name their new animals. Kids also create customized birth certificates and personalize their animals by dressing them up. Participants have the option to take personalization even further by adding animal sound chips, and can color and decorate their new friends' take home bags or "Ark" animal carriers.

Noah's Ark provides birthday party invitations.

The Northwest Puppet Center, tucked since 1986 into a charmingly renovated church in North Seattle's Maple Leaf neighborhood, is the Northwest's only puppet center, and a labor of love by its founders, the Carter family. It offers puppetry for the entire family by the The Carter Family Marionettes and guest artists, and features a museum, store, research library, picnic area and playground (great for letting off steam before or after), birthday parties, and school programs.

Shows here are a lot of fun - stories are arresting, and the puppets are beautifully made and handled. Puppeteers are skilled at keeping an auditorium full of restless children interested and engaged. An American Sign Language interpretation is featured on the first Saturday of each show, 1pm.

Birthday parties: See a puppet show with your birthday group, and the birthday child will have the honor (or the embarrassment) of being called up on stage to receive a crown and an audience rendition of "Happy Birthday." Room rental is available after the 3pm shows on Saturday or Sunday ($75/hour, plus the regular ticket price.) Use the kitchen to store cake, ice cream, and other party supplies (please bring your own table cloth.) The party room is good for twenty kids or fewer. Call for details and to reserve.

Seattle Clowns offers clowns, characters, and children's performers for birthday parties, picnics, and parades. Other services include face painting, magic shows, and balloon animals.

An all-ages, non-smoking Karaoke place, SBK offers six private party rooms, or you can opt to have a complete karaoke system with English songs or Japanese songs delivered and set up at your home, or wherever you would like to have a party (well, within two-hour driving distance from Seattle). When your party is done, the company comes back to pick up the system. A 24-hour complete rental starts at $175.

Lovely Seward Park sits on Bailey Peninsula, a remnant of old-growth forest that juts like a thumb into Lake Washington. The entry to the park is all Olmsted-designed civility - curving drives, a beautiful native plant garden, a children's play area and picnic shelters - but head up the hill and the scenery changes. The upper part of the park has been left largely wild. Meadows with unmown grass alternate with areas of lush forest. The Amphitheatre, which holds large crowds and is the site of various events and community celebrations during the summer, is located in the upper area.

A 2.5-mile path loops around the waterfront; click on the link above for a trail map that shows other hiking and biking trails through the park. A swimming beach, staffed by a lifeguard during the summer, is located to the left when you enter from Lake Washington Boulevard S.

Over 100 species of birds, including two pairs of nesting eagles, have been spotted at the park - bring those binoculars. The park is visited by other animals, such as muskrat, river otters, and turtles, as well. Friends of Seward Park maintains a good website that details the park's natural history.

The park's Environmental and Audubon Center (206.684.4396) offers a variety of fun nature-oriented classes and workshops such as nature sketching and soap making, and family events such as bat-, eagle- and owl-watching, and stories around the campfire. They all require pre-registration, and are low-cost. See our calendar for dates and times of events; for class information, see the website or contact the Center to get on their mailing list.

Summer camp program are offered for kids ages 11 to 14 and includes hikes, games, field trips, and crafts centered around local nature themes. Contact the Education Director at 206.652.2444, ext 102 for more information.

The Art Studio (206.722.6342) offers kids' classes, such as clay sculpting. Go to www.sewardparkart.org for a current schedule.

Group Programs are offered for Scout or Campfire troops, playgroups, birthday parties, or other events that involve groups of kids. The programs, 1.5 hours in length, are tailored to the age group in question, and feature excellent seasonal topics, such as birdwatching, botany, the history of Lake Washington, birds of prey, and more.

Spirit's Party Barn offers birthday parties ($150-$300) and one-hour "pony experiences" that include visits with animals at the petting zoo, learning how to rope a fake cow head, and pony rides. Each child also receives a temporary tattoo, a cowboy hat, and a bandanna. Prices are $50 for the first child and $10 for each additional child. (Maximum of five children.)

Garry Golightly, under his nom de play Bubbleman, is one of those people who gives our sometimes maddeningly reserved city a bit of spark. He's a bubble-blowing fixture at local fairs and festivals and, if you're lucky, you'll catch sight of him doing his bubble thing on Green Lake's east side at sunset. His purple van with Dot Calm license plates, often streaming bubbles from the driver's side window at stoplights, is a common sight around town.

He says he's "availabubble for birthdays (I call them Worthdays), weddings, divorces, day-care and community centers, upgradings, downsizings, Bar Mitzvahs, unions, reunions, family reunions, schools, nursing homes, fairs, festivals, flea and farmers markets..." His fees are negotiabubble, and he offers a single mother discount. Call him with queries or send an email through his website.

At his shows, which last about an hour and which he prefers to do outside, he puts a length of chain around him and his equipment in a large circle, and doesn't allow children to cross it while he's working. He also enforces a no-smoking and empty-hands (no food or drink in kids' hands) rule. He uses of all sorts of interesting shapes and found objects to make his sometimes enormous bubbles, all the while talking about conservation, respect, and the joys of really cheap toys. Kids are transported to bubble heaven. Everybody's happy.

Thistle Theatre is a Seattle-based theatre group that presents puppet shows at three locations around town. Performances are generally suitable for kids ages three and up.

Thistle Theatre is the only performing arts organization in the Pacific Northwest that specializes in Bunraku, an ancient Japanese style of puppetry. The puppeteers, dressed in black to suggest invisibility, operate all of the character's limbs with rods from behind.

The group also offers birthday entertainment at your home or party location - call for information.

Thistle Theatre is a Seattle-based theatre group that presents puppet shows at three locations around town. Performances are generally suitable for kids ages three and up.

Thistle Theatre is the only performing arts organization in the Pacific Northwest that specializes in Bunraku, an ancient Japanese style of puppetry. The puppeteers, dressed in black to suggest invisibility, operate all of the character's limbs with rods from behind.

The group also offers birthday entertainment at your home or party location - call for information.

Thistle Theatre is a Seattle-based theatre group that presents puppet shows at three locations around town. Performances are generally suitable for kids ages three and up.

Thistle Theatre is the only performing arts organization in the Pacific Northwest that specializes in Bunraku, an ancient Japanese style of puppetry. The puppeteers, dressed in black to suggest invisibility, operate all of the character's limbs with rods from behind.

The group also offers birthday entertainment at your home or party location - call for information.

TinkerBelly's custom dance parties offer a unique dance experience for children, incorporating belly dance lessons, dress-up, jewelry making, and music.

Face painter Lynn Brevig is an artist and art teacher with over 25 years of experience working with children. She's available to paint at birthday parties, festivals, company parties, sporting events, wedding receptions, bar mitzvahs, and other events.

She brings a display board with over 30 designs to choose from to your event; guests can also make special requests. Kids can choose to have their faces, arms, hands, or legs painted.

Lynn uses high-quality, hypo-allergenic paints (specially formulated for skin) and can provide references upon request.