Hi Vickie
I guess if your interest is just to do a few balloons for your child's birthday party, then I'd probably suggest just going here
balloon-tutorial-help.html 
for some one balloon creations. Also, you could trawl YouTube for things like balloon dogs, swords, cats, rabbits etc. These are all straightforward and you shouldn't have too much of a problem with them. If you are completely new, I'd start off with the link above, as Graham has posted some great resources which detail (with diagrams) the basic, and not so basic, twists so I'd probably inflate a few balloons and play with practicing the twists first.
However, I suspect that after doing this you'll be hooked and you'll be wanting to make bigger and better things. When (and I'm sure it will be when, not if!!) that happens, there are many DVDs out there from very skilled artists that would definitely be worth investing in. But more than that (
and I'll whisper so that they don't hear me 
--
many of the contributors to these forums are immensely talented artists and are always friendly and willing to help -- ) so go ahead and just post a question - I do!
Hope this helps - and best of luck with the party. Don't forget, you can post a photo or two of your creations!
--Neil
