1St Birthday Party - Irvine,CA

For my oldest's 1st (an October b-day) I arranged to have it at a local growing farm's pumpkin patch. Parents and their little ones (dressed in costume) took the hayride to pick pumpkins from the field. When we got back to the barn, we had cupcakes and juice boxes. There was a great photo spot (lots of pumpkins) and a petting zoo. It was just the right amount of 'things to do' and anyone could leave as soon as their little one was tired.

Cake, friends, family music and laughter! And lots of photos with Mom, Dad siblings and grandparents!!! simple is best xo

Most mom's want to go ALL OUT for the 1st b-day, I was one of them :)
To be honest the BEST part of it all is watching your lil one tear up their cake for the first time.

Make sure that you have everything you need for the ADULTS at the party. Food, drinks etc. If there are other little kids coming, get some lil goodie bags with toys or something in them.

When it comes to your little one...get two cakes!
One for everyone else at the party to enjoy and another small one for your lil one to DESTROY!! its so fun to watch their eyes light up when they have that first taste of cake.

Decorate with something that your lil one is into, i.e Barney, Animals, etc

How about a puppy party? Look in LA Parent mag

WOW! When both my girls turned one, we had a family birthday for them. We asked each family member to make a birthday card for them, but not for this year. They were to pick a special year in their own life and write a birthday card for that year. For example, my mom made a card for them for their 26th birthday, the year she had me. She told them of how she felt having me etc. It was great. My Baba made cards for their 60th birthday with a list of what she was doing when she was 60. It will be a nice comparison for them.
The first birthday is more about you than the child, they are truly too young to grasp it. So make it special so that when you baby is older they can really appreciate it.

B.
Family Success Coach

www.BIRTHDAYBALLERINA.com

Put some AWE into your little girls birthday party with a REAL B.. She comes to your location, performs, plays, teaches, interacts and entertains. Perfect for any age child. Ballet theme birthdays are complete with Birthday B.!
Check out our easy-to-read website for all the details. We have video, pictures, resumes, pricing and more. Nothing comes close to the whimsy of a Birthday B. party.

Email: ____@____.com

Serving SoCAL and beyond!

1) Plan it for when it is NOT nap time. Or the child will be tired/fussy and over-stimulated.

2) parties at this age are typically 2 hours max.

3) To cut costs, plan it for a non-meal time. Then that way you don't have to serve 'lunch' or 'dinner' and can just serve cake and snack stuff.
Also, determine how many people you will invite... this also affects cost.

4) Plan ahead... for setting up of the party and clean-up after ward... and get HELP to do this. Or you will be stuck doing it yourself and then having to contend with baby. And clean-up after ward can take time...

5) Decide if you will open presents at the party or not. Or just at home after the party. If doing it at the party, it can take lots of time, maybe 1 hour. AND have someone help you, with a notebook, to write down who gave what, so you can write proper thank you cards afterward.

6) If doing so, you'd need to plan the opening of presents, within the party's time frame of when it ends.

7) Plan the cake time/singing/eating of the cake, into the time frame too.

8) take lots of photos.

9) Have a banner or huge piece of poster board, for people/kids to sign or put their names/handprints on it... it makes for a nice sentimental souvenir from the party.

good luck,
Susan

Hi,
Fun, fun, fun!!! As many Parents seem to do, we decided to go big for our Daughter's 1st Bday and we don't regret one bit of it! Whether she remembers it or not, who cares! She had a fun time that day and we made her a beautiful photo album full of awesome memories for her to look back on!
So in a nutshell, we did a Princess theme party. We gave all the little girls tiara's and wands, all the little boys Crowns and light up sabers. Oriental Trading website was awesome for lots of that stuff! We hired a pony that was dressed like a Princess that pulled a carriage that fit 2 people in it (kids or adults) up and down the street. We hired a petting zoo (same people that brought the pony) that set up in the front yard. I came up with all kinds of games to keep the kids occupied the entire time and had a wide age range of prizes available because we had kids from 1yr thru 10yrs there. My Sister made super cute cellophane necklaces that had candy all around it with a big sugar cookie medallion in the center that read "Dani's 1st Birthday" for all of the kids to wear, they LOVED them! My Daughter stayed awake for the party and she really did have fun. I really do think the photo album memory book is a great idea so she can look back on it later and see how much fun she really did have! Here's a link to see my book in case you're interested (I think you can click something like "see full page view" to see it bigger when you get to the site)
http://community.shutterfly.com/gallery/post/start.sfly?p...

I noticed that we're Neighbors, I'm in Costa Mesa. If you happen to have any questions about any of the rentals I mentioned, games we played or anything else, send me a private message and I'd be happy to help :) No matter what you choose to do, your baby girls gonna have fun. Good luck!

For my girls first Birthday parties, I kept it simple. I cleared the lounge / dining room and put loads of toys out ie. table with wooden puzzles, farm in another corner, small ball pool etc... and invited their little friends over to play. I then served drinks and nibbles for the parents. I think I may have served a child friendly snack half way through. Instead of a party bag I found a small (1yr old friendly, as most party bag fillers are way too old) toy for them to take home. I also kept the time frame to 1.5 hours. It worked really well for all 3 of my girls.
Have a fantastic day whatever you end up doing! :-)

Keep it simple. At 1, she's not going to care much about decorations, cake, etc. She'll be happy to see the people who love her there.
I threw a semi-big party for my DS on his 1st birthday. We had it at the local fire department, because my husband is a member there. We did a big cake with a fire truck on top, balloons in red, orange, and yellow, and simple snacks. I think we invited 40-50 people, and that was a little much. He was overwhelmed and didn't last but about 1 hour before having a meltdown.
I really wish I had just invited family and had it at our house.
Also, he was NOT into the cake smashing thing. When the cake icing got on his hands, he cried until we wiped them off.

For my first son's 1st b'day, we threw a BBQ at my son's favorite park...easy, sweet, and simple. For my second son, he was so sick (near hospitalization) and the thought of organizing a party on top of that illness was too much. Thus, he never really had a 1st b'day.

Now that my sons are 12 and 16, I can tell you that it makes zero difference to your child if you throw a bash for 50 or nothing at all. Do what's fun for you and everyone will have a good time!

Good luck!

on my daughter's 1st birthday we had a small cake that I had made with clowns on it.. my parents and in-laws came over... then the following week we had a large party for family and friends... and a large cake from the bakery.. we didn't do a little friends' party

www.birthdaysrus.com has some great ideas for themes, etc!

I always made a small cake for my 4 kids...one they could dive into all on their own and play in and eat on...then had another larger cake for all the family that came. The first birthday is for the parents more than the child, really!!!! However, keeping it simple is #1 and secondly, make sure you take lots and lots of pictures...you really want to have the memories! The more involved it is the more overwhelmed the child becomes, so simple is best!

Hi C., I made my 3 kids 1st B-day party fun but kept it simple, a cake is the important thing for the picture and the baby infront of it! its a wonderful memory. Plan it to be short after nap time! If you have other babies around your daughter's age you can make a race with boxes (the big ones, the ones you find in Costco or Sam Club) you tie some rope and have parents pull their child inside the box, the little ones have a blast and so do parents racing against each other!. and after the little ones play with the boxes and everyone has fun. Hope my ideas help

I let my daughter practice for about 2 weeks before with cupcakes. at her party she dug right in, I thought that was a good idea. We decorated with farm stuff, and had a pool party - but the party was really more for us, she had no idea what was going on.

We had theme parties for our kids. We had an indoor party for my oldest with crock pot hot foods and some pasta salads and stuff. I bought a cake and had ice cream and that was it! It was just for our family and our really close friends. Same thing for my youngest daughter except hers was a BBQ. They dont really care about any of it, I figure that first party is for me! lol.....have fun!

My advise: Keep it simple and small. At this age, it's more for the adults anyway. We just celebrated my daughter's 1st birthday a couple weeks ago with a backyard party and invited family and a few close friends with young kids - which still ended up being 25-30 people. Email/phone invite only. It was super hot that day but my the layout of my house would've made it hard to get everyone inside. We put up a canopy to create some shade. I didn't want to worry about young kids around a hot grill so I cooked things that could feed a lot of people a (turkey chili, mac-n-cheese, no mayo coleslaw, chicken sausage or meatballs, fruit, bread/spread, veggies and dip, kid-friendly snacks. We boiled a few hot dogs for the kids. I had 2 dz fancy cupcakes including 1 for my daughter to dig into and I also made a cake. She's really into birds right now (it was one of her 1st words) so I found some cute, inexpensive, homemade cake toppers on etsy.com. For activities I had bubbles, sidewalk chalk, and a bean bag toss game. Then we moved inside (where it was cool) to open presents - which was mostly for the grandparents. I say save the themes and big productions for the year's to come.

at the time of my son's 1st birthday my husband was into sky diving. so we had my son's party at the drop zone. we had a circus theme and grilled hotdogs. we had buckets of peanuts and animal crackers around. and a cotton candy machine. the weather was great adn the entertainment was perfect-sky divers...no alcohol on the drop zone during day light hours!!! we did do a small family only party the night before...