What will you do/did you do?
What are you feelings on it? Do you think it should be big with everyone there or small and simple?
It seems like over on the 9-12 mos board there is a lot of talk about invitations and menus. I know IRL people either go all out or do it low key.
What is your opinion on the 1st BDay.
Re: Poll (1st Bday Parties)
What will you do/did you do? I am thinking something small. It is Thanksgiving weekend. It is cold and a bad time to travel (In - laws are about an hour and my family is in NY)
What are you feelings on it? Do you think it should be big with everyone there or small and simple? I think I would rather put extra money in his college fund and keep it small. I am afraid I will regret it though. That is kind of why I started the poll(: Looking for what you ladies think or thought when your LO was 1.
What will you do/did you do? We'll have a party for him. His b-day will be on a Friday so we'll probably have a party on Saturday
What are you feelings on it? Do you think it should be big with everyone there or small and simple? Most likely it'll be a party at our house. We'll invite family, our close friends & probably some of our close neighbors (4 houses in a row have young kids so we're pretty close!).
My plan is to go to Party City & see what kind of party supplies they have on sale that I can get. I'm not concerned with doing a "theme" party since he's not going to remember it anyway. Just some decorations, good food & people that love DS is all we need!
Honestly, I dont' get the whole huge 1st bday party thing, complete with centerpieces, etc. I mean if you have a huge family and this is the norm, go ahead. But it seems like some people are taking this into "My Super Sweet 16" territory.
We'll keep it simple. Mostly because we have no friends with kids, and only DH's immediate family nearby. We'll celebrate with just the 3 of us for dinner, then dessert and presents with the ILs later in the evening.
We'll go to my parents' house for Thanksgiving and have a family party then. Not sure yet if it's going to be just my parents and sister yet or if we'll invite my uncles, aunts, and cousins.
DS was born on Dec 23rd, and we are planning on having his party on his actual Birthday. I'm not judgemental at all when it comes to b-day parties, if you want to go big and celebrate, do it, if small and intimate is what you are comfortable with, then go with that. IMO the 1st birthday is a time to celebrate for the family, the 1 year old isn't going to remember it.
We are going to invite family and close friends, people that have supported us through the first year and love John. Since it's so close to Christmas I don't expect everyone to make it, I know it's a busy time, but since it's on a Thursday right before Christmas I think more people will be off. I might plan a menu, but it would be finger food and I like making invitations so I probably will.
We did small and simple - we just our immediate family. If I had a bunch of friends w/ little ones too, I might feel differently, but all my IRL friends had very small parties for first birthdays, so that's pretty much what we did too. DD's bday is Dec. 10th, so that had some impact on it too. We had ~18 people at her party last year (our parents, siblings, spouses and cousins) and it was a good size for DD and us.
This year for 2 we will probably have a bigger party - including daycare friends, etc. but that will probably be 5 kids and parents.
We are on the fence about this too. The problem is that we live here, I'm from Pittsburgh and DH is from NY. There's no way we can have a big party at our (small) house here - it would just be too crowded and complicated for everyone to come in for it...and our elderly grandparents can't travel. Plus, his birthday is in early March, so there's the weather to consider for traveling and it would have to be inside.
My parents have already said that they want to throw a bigger party in late spring/early summer for his "birthday" for my family. I have a huge family and we don't all get together that often - but kids typically have a large baptism party and 1st birthday. But that kinda complicates it with our friends and the ILs, you know? Because we could just have a few people over on his actual birthday for cake or whatever...but I have no idea what the ILs will do. And it seems kinda ridic to have 3 freaking parties for his 1st birthday.
Ah well...6 more months to worry about it. :P
Happy Birthday, little man. We love you so much!
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Wow it seems everyone is pretty close in opinions on this topic. A lot of us seem to have winter babies(: It would be perfect to throw a party at a park if the weather was nice.
I agree with having a small house and weather not suitable for outdoors, family spread out, near a holiday, not many friends with LO, and most everything else everyone said. I was just started to feel like I was not normal. So thank you for sharing your opinions.
I want to have something Thanksgiving weekend invite friends and family but I do understand it is a holiday weekend so if people can't come that is fine. I might do a Football theme just because we are big Raven's fans and any excuse to Embrace football season(: I want to keep it low key my house is small for DH huge family but maybe put some tables in the basement. Heck its family right?
Thanks again. I know I have time. I just went to a beautiful 1st bday party yesterday so it was weighing on my mind.
We went small with just my parents, my sister and her family and two close friends and their children. Emily is more on the shy side, so I think a lot of people would have overwhelmed her. And its not like she needed any gifts.
For her 2nd b-day, I think we'll invite a couple more people/daycare kids but still not make it huge.
Oh I know that my mod pink monkey decoration are not bump worthy, but I rather not spend a ton of $$ when she won't even remember it.
What does AW stand for? (I don't know all the bump terminology)...
We actually just celebrated my son's first birthday. We had a family party on the 21st at our home. I invited family as well as friends without children and friends with young infants to and then this past Saturday we had a friend party at a local playground. We had a great time and the parents all said that their kids went to bed early and slept for awhile - so it was a hit all around. I didn't go all out for the party but I was pretty impressed with the goodie bags that I did. My son just woke up so I can't elaborate right now...
AW = Attention Whore
Also - anonsouthernbell - your noise makers are the fave kids toy @ DD's daycare. They also use colored beads for some of them and use them to talk about colors to the older kids.
I come from a huge Italian family and it is traditional for the kids in our family to have a huge blow out party for their first birthday. However, I don't know if we'll be doing that... DD was born during flu season and she is a preemie so it may be too much of an RSV risk.
lol I would never have guessed that! And that is a great idea about the beads ty for sharing
(I also if anyone is interested bought the toddler crayons at BRU. They are triangular shaped. Right now they have a special buy 1 get 2 free