1st Birthday advice needed!

We're throwing a joint 1st birthday party for my babies and my friends twins (also boy/girl born the same day!) We're having it at the park with family and friends. We're contemplating hiring our music teacher for entertainment (instruments, singing) as we know they enjoy this, but we don't know if it's necessary for a first bday party...it's really more of a "WE MADE IT!" party for us parents anyways, right?! :banana: Did you do any sort of entertainment and did you find that the babies got anything from it?

My other question...outfits! We've thought of tutus/tiaras for our girls, and little crowns for our boys...any suggestions on where to buy these relatively inexpensively? Any other ideas on clothes?

Any other ideas/advice/experiences you can share would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

TBH my girls didn't enjoy the party a whole lot - they didn't like cake and they were very suspicious of all the people that they don't see on a regular basis. Mine had tutus that they'd worn for their 9 month pics that they wore again.

If I had any advice I guess it would be don't expect too much! It really is more for the parents than for the babies.

 

We went all out. We had a Dr. Seuss theme (as suggested on here by someone). The girls wore Thing 1 and Thing 2 outfits. We had it at the park, had a bounce house for the olders kids. So they had the bounce house, playground, soccer field, and basketball court as entertainment. We had pizza, fruit, goldfish, and cake. We DID NOT open presents at the party as that would have been WAY overwhelming. The girls both had a good time it seemed. And everyone else had a great time too. We had over 80 people there.

 

We kept it small. Their birthday is the day after Christmas and they had no clue to what to make of Christmas and were confused by their birthday. We had a guest list of 12 people (all family), a Winnie the Pooh theme, we had a cake for the adults and chocolate chip cupcakes for the babies. They enjoyed all the attention, could have cared less about the presents, and I think they wondered who the party was for. The party was definitely more for us then them! Whatever you decide to do, enjoy yourself!

 

We had a pretty big bash (relative to the size of our small house). I wish we had kept it smaller. We got some cute photos with the cake and the presents, but my boys both wanted me to hold them the whole time and were just frustrated by the huge crowd and the high energy. Not to complain about their party - it WAS fun and we have some great memories. It is definitely more about the parents at this age. I think that if we had baby entertainment, it may have overwhelmed at least one of my sons. Not that it's not a FANTASTIC idea... I just think our small space would have made it too chaotic and overstimulating for him. In a park, that could be totally different, though. The biggest thing I suggest to you is to make it an event you will enjoy partaking in - you have worked so hard throughout the first year and you deserve to enjoy yourself!!

 

Our's was small - we're having our big one this summer at 18 months when the weather is nice. They napped through half of their party! :lol:

Sounds like you guys have a nice party planned - and how cool is it that your friend has b/g twins born on the same day! I'm so jealous!!

 

We did the big party ... we rented out a room in a hall since our house couldn't accomodate all the guests ... we did not have entertainment, just brought a bunch of toys and had them out for the kids to play with ... for us, it was more our party. We were excited that we made it through the first year with twins! We had tons of food, liquor, etc ... the twins were pretty crabby all day .. wanted to be held and didn't even really want to leave me and DH, which was weird ... because usually when Grandma and Opa and Aunt Chrissy are there, we are chopped liver. Found out the next day at their 1 year appt that both my kids had double ear infections. So that kinda explained their miserable-ness during the party.

I don't regret it. It was fun for us ... and we were proud to show off our kids and the fact that one year out, we were all still alive! haha ...

 

We went all out for the twins first B-day too!
DH has a pretty large family so it was decided to rent a beach house that had a private pool and we had the idea we were going to do a pool side party but, the first of Aug in Florida was a horrible idea it was way too hot so, we ended up moving it inside.
I bought crowns/tiaras at a local party store here in town but, I bought all the 1st b-day decorations from online at Oriental Trading Company they have some really cute stuff.
They weren't too crazy about all the people around and by the time for cake rolled around it was time for nap. All and all DH & I enjoyed it and would do it over again.

Good Luck with the party

 

My twins will be one on May 30th. I will be having a birthday party at my home. We have about eighteen children between my husband and my family. So, the party will be a little bigger than I had intended.

I am having a Sesame Street Beginnings theme. I have a clown coming to perform for the older kids ( twins probably will be too scared). I am also having a limbo contest and a piñata. The twins get to participate in the piñata as it is a pull string piñata; they will get to go first too. I am also giving favor bags away.

As far as food is concerned, I am preparing BBQ Chicken, Hot Dogs, Potato Salad and other Ethnic African/Caribbean dishes. I am also ordering some nuggets from Chik-fi-la. Additionally, I will have some chips and other snacks too.

I ordered one Sesame Street cake for the both of them. However, they will not be eating it as I will just give them each an individual cupcake with a number 1 on it ( they don't need all that sugar). My older children will cut the cake for them.

My party starts at 2pm. My twins wake up from their 2 1/2 hour nap around this time.

 

We just had our first b-day party. We kept it kinda small. We had about 20 people, mostly family. We did a rubber ducky theme. We had pizza and I cut up veggies for a salad bar, that went over great! Everyone loved the salad bar. Also remember to check with your local grocery store, some offer a free 1st b-day cake. Ours did. and if the decorations on it will be too expensive ( ours was $7.99 for 2 rubber ducks) you can just have them decorate them plain with the colors you want and add your own stuff to it. As for entertainment, we just had a few toys out. Some big balls, and bubbles(these were the favorite). Hope you guys have fun! :birthday:

 

We had our party at our house. Our boys are the oldest of their friends and all of the toys we have got played with during the party. The parents got to talk and it was very laid back. I think music sounds like a great idea. Is it something like KinderMusik where she could do a "class" for the kids and then that be all?