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 Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 3:28 pm
My son Aden is 10-months old now, so I'm started to get pretty excited for his first birthday in March!
I'm just wondering if anyone here can give me some advice on the birthday party subject.
First off, how soon should I send out invitations, to ensure everyone RSVP's on time? I know a lot of people who take their time RSVP-ing.
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:36 pm
I try to do about two full weeks in advance for invitations to any party. If your really wanting to get the word out you could do three. You want to invite people early enough that they'll be free to come,but you don't want there to be some much time between the invite and the party that it gets forgotten. I hope that helps.
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 9:14 pm
It does, thank you!
When do you think would be too soon to start planning? We have a date and possible time decided, but other than that I'm trying not to go further. I'm just getting so excited!!
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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 4:27 pm
Remember this is just a first birthday party. While, of course!, it's a big milestone, it's mostly about us parents than really the child. Just in my experience of birthday parties, if you try to go overboard and overplanning, you're going to be disappointed and overwhelm the baby.
I go by what angiemademe said. I usually do about 2-3 weeks advance notice with an RSVP by: date. I make exceptions for my dearest of friends of course. I don't waste the energy, money, and time on elaborate themes, but that's just me.
I'd keep it very small and intimate for the first. We do the favorite foods and a smashcake (which is totally for our amusement), and keep it sweet and short. You will get people who show up late, kids that don't want to cooperate, it rarely goes as planned. So, my biggest advice is to not go nuts. Believe me, been there done that!
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Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 8:19 am
No, I'm definitely not going to go nuts. I'm only inviting the people he sees often enough to recognize them (which is still a fair amount of people, since our families are both in town). I'm going to bake a cake and have some muchie-type snacks (cheese and crackers and whatnot). It'll just be about an hour and a half to two hours long. I'm not going to really decorate or anything, or plan anything specific. Really just have people over, eat some cake, and open some presents.
As of now, I'm unsure of what kind of cake to make, as I've never made one before. I've narrowed it down to a white cake or a banana cake... I'm going to make a couple next week or so to see if I can actually do it!
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Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:28 pm
When my son had his first birthday party back in November we made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for him, and then a regular cake for everyone else. That turned out pretty good. Trent loved his cake!
If you get boxed cake mix it's....well....a piece of cake! All you have to do is follow the directions (which are simple) and throw it in the oven.
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Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:44 pm
Tristan's getting close to his second Birthday, and he's really into Batman, so we're going to some simple decorations like plates and cups, and maybe get him a Batman cake. For his first, all I did was go to the Dollar Tree and buy some generic plates and cups, then invited his closest family members. He had his own small cake that he DEVOURED (the entire 4-inch cake). Since I knew my friend that lives over 200 miles away couldn't make it, I just handed out invitations to family members as little keepsakes about two weeks prior to the event. We all live so close together in my town, and we see each other so often that invitations aren't even necessary. blaugh
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 8:17 am
I'm going to test out a couple cakes this weekend... and if I totally screw it up I'll buy a cake mix for the real thing.
The only thing that will be remotely "themed" is the paper plates/cups/napkins I'm going to buy (I'm going to look for a jungle theme). I'm not going to do balloons or anything, just paper plates and whatnot because it'll be easier.
Thanks for all the advice, ladies! I have another question, though. We're doing his birthday party the day before his actual birthday, since that'll be a Monday... so should we save all his gifts from his dad and I for the actual day, or should we let him open any on the party day?
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:52 pm
I'd say just do them all at once. At one they don't really understand presents anyway. How was he with christmas, did he choose paper over toys? If he is adorable about opening presents then it maybe worth dragging out. But otherwise it may just be confusing. (in my opinion)
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 2:02 pm
I'd say it depends on how many people are coming and how many gifts. If there's quite a lot, he's going to get bored (really, come to think of it, my kids only had the attention span for one present, guess who ended up opening the rest? lol), you can space it out. I wouldn't really worry about wrapping the ones from you.
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Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2009 1:08 pm
My daughter's first birthday was a huge event, but not on us. There was a neighborhood cookout being held at my parents' house because friends were in town. We decided to have her birthday that night to share cake with our neighborhood friends and it worked out great, cuz all it cost us was the traditional white dress*. My mother bought everything else, including the cake. * The traditional white dress was started by my parents. The baby is dressed in a beautiful white outfit and allowed to smash a chocolate cake to bits! We let Raelin start at one end of the cake while we served from the other. It was a great party.
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Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:04 am
There will be more guests than I'd really want at his birthday, because the majority of both mine and Richard's family lives in town, and I have quite an extended family. I think we'll do our presents on his real birthday just so he doesn't lose too much interest. Our Christmas was sort of in 4 parts (Christmas morning at our house, afternoon at my dad's house, dinner at Richard's parents' house, Boxing Day at my mom's) so he'd get to play with the paper or whatever in between gift-openings. He's got quite a short attention span so he'll probably lose interest quickly.
Thanks for all the advice!
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Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 3:14 pm
lunashock I'd say it depends on how many people are coming and how many gifts. If there's quite a lot, he's going to get bored (really, come to think of it, my kids only had the attention span for one present, guess who ended up opening the rest? lol), you can space it out. I wouldn't really worry about wrapping the ones from you. I can relate to this! Tristan had to get up early because my mom, sister and brothers all wanted us over there at 9 am--that's kind of early for Tristan to be getting dressed up to leave the house. He got ANGRY when I tried to help him unwrap his presents! He wanted nothing to do with any of it. So, what I did was unwrap the big fire truck he'd gotten from my mom, gave it to him to play with, and I unwrapped the rest of his presents. He just played by himself, and with the boxes and wrapping paper. He'll more than likely be the same way on his Birthday. He gets kind of embarassed/angry when people fuss over him.
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Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 8:02 am
Alright, a thread with answers to my questions! Zoie's b-day is on the 12th. I'm just doing a cook out and cake for her.
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 11:03 pm
Happy birthday to your daughter!
I am getting SO excited for Aden's birthday. We've invited WAY too many people to his party. I guess Aden sees and knows a lot more people than I was hoping! I'm actually kind of hoping a few people don't show, as we don't have a big place! Anyway, I tested two cakes. The first one, banana cake, totally messed up, but was still mighty tasty, so I tried it again. The second, which is still in the fridge, is delish, so that's the winner. I'll make another the day before the party for sure. We're gonna buy a couple of those party platters from Safeway for snacks, and paper cups and plates and stuff from the dollar store. It'll be nothing big, but a good day, I think.
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