Food for Baby's Forst Birthday Party Any Ideas?

Well on my daughters first birthday. We also like you had the party late in the afternoon. We served little finger foods (stuff kids like: pizza rolls, dinsore nuggets and chips with dip)

I would suggest finger foods. Dips and fruit. I have a great dip recipe.

1 pound of ground sausage
2 blocks of cream cheese
two cans of rotel

Brown the sausage.
Then make it like you would regular cheese dip. melt in the cream cheese and add the two cans of rotel. I use Owens regular sausage and mild rotel but you could spice it up if you would like. Everytime I make it everyone LOVES it!!

I just did my daughter's first birthday and my advice to you is to do as little as possible, so that it is more enjoyable for you. People will be so busy watching your baby's every move that they will not even eat the food you have. Cake and punch is my suggestion. Chips and dips if you insist. Make it easy on yourself so that you can enjoy your child's birthday.

Well you can do finger foods--

Small sandwiches, and I found the best snack ever at Sam's.

You can take a ritz cracker, put phili cream cheese on it and sprinkle it with Ocean Spray cranberry-raisins (cran-raisins) and it was delicious.

Also you can take flour tortilla's and make "pinwheels" out of them. It is phili-cream cheese again, powdered ranch mix (mix that together) and spread it on a flour tortilla. Take some ham and put over that, and roll it up, let it set and then cut it in slices. Keep them refrigerated unless eating them.

Another favorite is phili cream cheese with Bronco Bob's raspberry chipolte (sp?) sauce over it, with some of those water crackers--pepper is my favorite, but plain is good too.

Also, you can make a sherbet based punch, take your favorite flavor (orange is always excellent) and add ginger ale or seven up to it, and then you can zip it up with some concentrated pink/regular concentrated frozen lemonade.

Any kind of pretzels, chips, dips...

you can also make fruit plates out of seasonal fruits-- grapes, cantaloupe and honeydew as well as pineapple is good right now with a fruit dip

Also some veggie plates--mini/baby carrots, broccoli and cauliflower with some dip.

You can make a cheese and olive plate (green and black) and some cheeses you can dice up with ritz and club crackers, add some salami, or some other hard meats and that's good too. You can even add some dill pickles and sweet pickles.

Keep in mind, doing it yourself saves a ton of money and you can do most of it the night before. :)

I have a ton of divided plates, trays, serving trays. I have found them on sale at places like JoAnn's, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and Target/Walmart/Sam's.

Good luck, and if I can think of anything else, I'll post it.

Also--have fun. Your sweet baby is turning ONE! Make sure you have someone taking pictures, etc of everything, if it won't be you. It sounds like you'll also be playing hostess.

If you are a scrapbooker, you can also have a 12x12 scrapbook page sign in sheet for the baby's scrapbook so everyone can write a love note to the baby. I used to do a birthday journal, but I have found the scrapbook pages to be easier to keep up with.

Keep it simple. People don't expect a meal at that time of day. Cake or cupcakes and ice cream, drinks, maybe pretzels, snack mix or chips and dips. Everyone will have a great time reagrdless of what you serve!

The first birthday is mostly for parents to celebrate with friends, babies and family.

I had a buffet dinner of Chicken Kiev, rice, veggies, a side or so with plenty of nice beverages for everyone. I made it myself (one of my specialties). We had cake and play tome for kiddos and everyone celebrated.

I have catered my parties with bbq, sandwiches and Italian as well.

Enjoy!

Hi K.,

We did crescant sandwich platters from Ralphs (sorry Kroger) here in TX. They have a variety with all condiments on the side. I made a pasta veggie salad, cut up melons and fruit. Very simple so you're able to enjoy your child's day and not spend too much time preparing and cleaning up.

We served state fair corn dogs (from Sams Club) at our little girl's 1st party...they were easy to bake up on a cookie sheet in large batches, then I just put them in a big bowl, stick end up. All condiments/dipping sauces were in cute little bowls (pink/purple was the color scheme) and in another tub held individual chip bags (also from sam's)...I can't remember the rest of the menu (she's now 4yrs old!) probably potato salad or something...but everybody still talks about those corn dogs! They were easy to eat and went great with the beer...after all, the 1st party is more for the parents anyway :)

BBQ sandwiches could be pretty easy. I use pork, but you could also use beef, and cook it in the crockpot, shred it, and add your fav. BBQ sauce. The crockpot is great too, because you can cook it, keep it warm, and serve out of it. Better yet, get those crock pot liners that you can just throw away, and there is no mess:) Search for sales and use a fairly inexpensive cut of meat..you actually dont want it to be too lean. Serve with chips and fruit and you are good to go. If you want to get crazier, do baked beans and potato salad, but I dont see much reason for that. Have a great birthday party:) ~A.~

You've gotten great suggestions here, but I'll add one more regarding ice cream.

If you insist on serving ice cream (I usually don't) and don't want to incur the cost of individual ice cream containers, you can let the ice cream soften a day or two before and scoop into foil muffin cups. Put them in the freezer on a tray to harden again and then simply place the tray next to the cake as you serve and place one cup on each plate to avoid the messy ice cream scooping and delay in cake serving.

L.

My daughters 1st birthday is in a few weeks. We are going to go to chick-fil-a and order a party tray of nuggets and chicken salad sandwiches. I will put out some chips and dips to go with it. Plan on something with little prep and easy clean-up so you can enjoy the party.

I had about 35 people for my daughter's first birthday. I got a whole spiral sliced ham, baked beans (crock pot), salad, deviled eggs, and rolls. I made one punch and put out pitchers of water.

Most things were prepared the night before and I just warmed up the beans and ham a few hours before the party. Have fun!

I just went to a 1st birthday with kids of all ages and the mom served a huge tray of finger sandwiches. It was refular bread with crusts cut off and each cut into three long strips. She stacked them about six high with about 12 stacks. There were chicken salad, pimento cheese and cream cheese and cucumber. Then she did a big tray of chick fil-a nuggets which were gone in a matter of seconds. There was also a giant bowl of goldfish and a platter of veggies with dip. It was very inexpensive but since everything was served nicely it looked beautiful and the kids were thrilled.

Might I also suggest individual blue bell ice cream containers so you don't break your wrist scooping at the last minute. Don't forget plastic spoons.

Have fun!!!

1. Finger foods (esp vegges)
2. two cakes (one for all kids 1 for adults) Let the kids go a=fter one worksbest outside.
3. pUnch cheaper than sodas and kids can have with out worry of caffine

We ordered a sandwich tray and cake at Costco, and then picked up a few other ready to serve things like dips, chips, fruit, and veggie tray there as well. Also, we got a variety of 12 packs of sodas and put them in an ice chest. We also picked up mini-cakes for our boys at Walmart for them to smash into...I think they were 3 or 4 bucks. I would keep it super simple and easy for you so you can enjoy most of the party instead of spending a lot of time preparing food. Good luck and hope you have a great party!

Rolled and sliced tortilla sandwiches. make like you would a sandwich, roll up and slice. For the ittle ones try sliced apples and bananas, grapes and such serve with TRIX or Another yogurt for kids. This is very ymmy.

I love getting the Chick fila nugget trays. Young and old love those things. Pair it with fruit, salad and some other kid friendly side and you have a decent menu. Note, Chick fila uses peanut oil so you do need to be careful for those with peanut allergies.

Pizza Hut, Cici's and Little Caesar's all have affordable pizzas and you'll have more time and less stress if someone else makes your food! If you'd rather make your own food, finger sandwiches, chips and cut up veggies with dip are all affordable and can be made a day or so in advance.

We just celebrated out son's 1st birthday 2 weeks ago. I ordered Jimmy John's sandwich platters and they were wonderful! I bought a couple big bags of chips to go on the side.

The weather should be nice so if you have a grill I would just make hamburgers and/or hot dogs. You can have chips, beans and pickles to go along with it. Another thought is to order pizza from either CiCi's or Little Ceasers where it's about 5.00 for a large. That is what we did for our son's first b-day and everyone loved it. For dessert have your b-day cake and ice cream. You could have also cut up some cantaloupe and/or watermelon. Most of all, don't stress! Have fun, that is what it's about after all.

i did cupcakes in the shape of elmo. it was the cheapest and i was able to do half choc.and half white. we had a lot of people and we had left overs. sams is where i got ours.

A couple pans of Baked Ziti or Vodka Penne, with bread and salad. Cheap, easy, spectacular.