First birthday.....

My girls will be one soon! I can't believe it.

We're trying to figure out what to do. We live 2 hours away from our hometown and I'm thinkingw we'll do something at my parents house. The majority of our guests would likely be from home, plus our home is not large enough to have the party in.

I don't know who we should invite, if we do friends and family it'll be too many people, but I don't want to leave someone out, and I also do not want to obligate people to attend, especially our friends who do not have children.

What are you planning to do about the guest list?

 

For the kids first birthday we invited friends and family and did it at our cousins house which is quite large. I think we had about 80 people. It was crazy, but so much fun at the same time and our kids did fine. We just really felt we wanted everyone that helped us out and was there for us to celebrate along with us. But, I think you should do what works for your family. Figure out how many people your parents house can hold and then just start prioritizing the list. That is how I always narrow it down. Good luck and congrats on having almost 1-year-olds!

 

We're keeping it smaller by just inviting family. While I would love to have my friends there too, our house can't accomodate that many people and we're on a tight budget. Even with just family, it gets tricky.

 

We're planning a BIG backyard BBQ for everyone (friends, family, kids, moms from my twins group, etc.), but we're stating "no gifts" in some tactful way (haven't figured out the wording) on the invites so people who have helped us all year can just come and celebrate with us for a fun time with no obligation. I know close family will still get them gifts, and other people can just come see them smear cake on each other...Their b-day's in the summer, though, and we have a big yard so it makes it easier.

 

We just did family to keep it small. I did not want to overwhelm them.

 

Great question, I am trying to figure this out too. I want it in our back yard, which is quiet large... but where do people park if we invite too many? We live in a culd-a-sac, and our drive way if we park our cars in the garage can probably fit 6 cars... My hubby wants to invite everyone we invited to the baby shower.... but that's a LOT of people! I am so confused. I am confused about a lot, games, food, decorations, parking, so forth and so on, so I guess that's why I started so early. All I have is the theme

 

Our girls are still young, but we will have their party at a park. They have a BBQ, and a playground, so everyone can have fun. My girls were born in August, so that helps us in terms of wheather cooperating. Not sure how many people we will invite, but if we invite everyone (family and friends) the park can accomodate that too. We had a non-traditional baby shower there (guys and girls) and everyone had a blast.

 

QUOTE(Natalochka @ Jan 23 2009, 11:51 AM) [snapback]1159033[/snapback]
Our girls are still young, but we will have their party at a park. They have a BBQ, and a playground, so everyone can have fun. My girls were born in August, so that helps us in terms of wheather cooperating. Not sure how many people we will invite, but if we invite everyone (family and friends) the park can accomodate that too. We had a non-traditional baby shower there (guys and girls) and everyone had a blast.


I was curious about our local park as well. But then I thought about random strangers? What do you think? Like I think it would be weird for random strangers to blend in with the 50 some odd people and maybe eat our food and cake? I am sure they wouldn't do that, but that's just one of my fears...

 

We kept it small -- just my parents, DH's parents, his siblings, and their kids, plus one or two close friends. There were about 16 people including us. My sister and her family live far away and can't afford to travel, so they weren't able to be there -- that was too bad, but saved us having to fit in 5 extra people.

I wanted a small party for several reasons: Our house is small (and it was November, so we couldn't count on the weather, although it was gorgeous as it turned out). My kids would not have enjoyed a bit noisy party. I don't especially enjoy hosting and didn't want to cook & entertain for a big crowd. It was perfect!