First Birthday Party Theme Ideas?

Wow! I didnt ever think I was going make it - but its coming soon!!! The kiddos first birthday! I am so excited and sad at the same time!
Any ideas as to themes or birthday party ideas? We have a large family and need entertainment for all ages. I know my kiddos wont be able to enjoy much - but I want our guests to enjoy themselves!

 

We just did a #1 type theme, and I just basically let the older kids play, either in my big kids room or outside.

I went to www.birthdayexpress.com and they have a site for First Birthday stuff. I actually went to the clearance/sale stuff first and found blue and pink napkins with 1st birthday on them, green plates with 1st birthday on them, pastel colored cups that said "baby" across the sides, I chose a neutral blue/green plastic cheap table cover. Bought the #1 cake pan from wilton's and made 2 #1 cakes, one with blue icing and one with pink icing. I ordered birthday signs for them (all of my kids each have a big nylon sign that says "Happy Birthday xxxxx" on it, and I order them neutral so they can be used for years and years. My son's is 8 yrs old and looks like new! We hang them in the living room for them). Anyways I found most of the stuff I needed on sale or clearance so it didn't cost as much.

You can do a pinata or something for any older kids, as long as you be careful the babies don't get any hard candy. You can find games for pin the tail on the donkey and such too if you are interested.

Since your babies birthday is closer to summer, I would just count on sending any older kids outside to play! Makes your life easier and the kids are happy about it!

 

Thanks Danielle!!
Thank you for the website info- they have great stuff. And I love the banner idea, especially that you can reuse it every year. My sister always "goes all out" for her kids birthday party- they rent an inflatable bounce house amongst other things. So my nephew called me the other day, asked me what time the bounce house was going to be delivered so he could be sure to be here when it arrived! I guess I better start looking where I can rent one! There went my budget!!

Joleen

 

We did a #1 theme. The cake and smash cakes were all in the shape of a 1. We turned the formal dining room into a cookie decorating room for the older kids. We had sugar cookies with different color icings, sprinkles, candy toppings, etc. The older kids stayed in the dining room and made cookies while the toddlers played in the living room and we opened gifts. I think everyone had a good time!

 

We did a blue/green theme for my boys for their first birthday.We had 80 people outside and I didn't have any form of entertainment-my kids were too young to enjoy it. LOL! I brought a bunch of baby/toddler toys outside and put them in the grass for my kids and my friends kids who are the same age. That was a big hit. DH has a lot of older distant cousins(7, 8, etc) and they all just hung around themselves, or played pool, etc in our basement.

If you are going to look into a bounce house, you might want to look into the cost of owning one. For what you are going to pay to rent it, especially if it's going to be a yearly thing, you might want to see how much one costs. I know we were thinking of going in on one with a few of our friends and just rotate it with the birthdays, etc. Maybe you could do something like that with family members. But I don't necessarily think you have to rent one for the older kids.

I'm not sure when the birthday is, but you could get some terra cotta pots from Michaels/ACMoore, and the kids could paint them and then add a flower seed to them. Simple and relatively inexpensive. My kids did that at a party two weekends ago-came out cute! And your kids could even do it!

Have fun planning!

 

GREAT IDEAS!!! THANK YOU ALL!!!

Joleen

 

I'm doing a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Carnival Theme. It's a merging of a backyard carnival and the fact that the boys LOVE mickey mouse. I have two older kids and there will be about 20 kids btw the ages of 2-8 at the party so I need alot of stuff to keep everyone occupied. We are also a family of disney lovers so I have tons of mickey stuff from past parties.

I am going to turn the backyard into a mickey themed carnival. I'm going to have a row of games for everyone to play, like a ring toss, bean bag throw, shooting gallery using water guns and ping pong balls, fishing pond, and basket ball throw. All the games with have Disney characters as part of them. My mom is buying the boys a bounce house for their b-day present and I am also getting a giant bowling set. I think I'm also going to get a ton of hula hoops since 6 year old girls seem to love them.

To keep with the carnival theme I'm going to order pre-bagged cotton candy, make mini-candy and caramel apples, and rent a popcorn machine. For cake, the boys will each get a small mickey cake and the rest will get rainbow cupcakes w/ chocolate mickey mouses on top. I'm also going to do mickey shaped rice crispy treats with the ears dipped in chocolate.

 

I'm not sure how much you bake but I LOVE this website, and just saw these posted last night. I've made other ones b/f and they're SO good!! My link

 

A friend of mine just sent me that link. I've made her cake pops before so I think I'm going to attempt the mickeys ones. However, those ones with faces are insane.