Throwing our 1st "friend" party

The time has come & here I am planning our first real friend birthday for the twins. They are in school & activities and have lots of their own friends.


How fun! :birthday: As we are in a smaller school (but large kindergarten class), we will invite the whole class(26). Heaven forbid they all show :shok: Just kidding.


Figure we will plan for fun & ease, so we are off to the local Corn Maze. It is a terrific place for even little ones. They have the large maze, a kids size maze, playgrounds, petting zoo, pumpkin launch, hay rides & on & on. I have rented one of their picnic areas which has a fire pit, BBQ & such.

I figure we will provide hot dogs & marshmallows to roast & hot chocolate to drink. Cakes of course. It will be 1 - 3 pm with people able to stay as long as they want after.

I plan to include 2 tickets with each invitation (for each child & 1 accompanying adult). It is only $3.50/person for the Petting Zoo rate & I want a parent to come.


I am trying to decide how to word the invitations. I want to do up only 1 and there are many children who are friends with both kids. For the others who are new to our school - how do you word feel free to only bring for the same sex kid?


I don't want people to feel obligated to bring gifts for both(honestly sounds like a horror to me), but I also don't want anyone to be surprised with twins when they get to the party as I (personally) would want to bring something for both.

I also need to think of something fun for a goody bag type of thing. Suggestions?

 

Hmmm, that's tough. I wonder if a little insert for parents stating that if their child wants to bring a gift, that you don't want them to feel stressed to bring two and that you would appreciate boys bringing gifts XXX and girls bringing gifts for xxx. The only issue I see in this is if you have a lot more of one gender RSVP'ing and then they other child gets far fewer presents. That's a tough one. Maybe someone else will have an idea.

For goodie bags, what about something like Caramel apples? Those cool flashlights that you can put a cap over and they make different Halloween shapes like a cat, pumpkin, witch (have you seen them?)? glow sticks?


Sounds like a really fun party. Different from anything we've been to and I'm sure they'll have a blast.

 

I understand what you're trying to do with the one gift thing, but it's a touchy subject, mentioning gifts in the invite. I would probably just let things happen as they may. Otherwise, if you have the girls bring a girl gift, and boys bring a boy one, and there's an imbalance in the number of each sex... :cry: I would just be clear in the invite that it's "Phillip and Katherine's Birthday!!!!" so there's no twin surprise. After that, it's up to the parents to decide if their kid is friends with one or both.

As far as goody bags go, my SIL just did a party with create-a-bug fruit snacks. They were a big hit with the kindergarten crowd. Depending on the rules at the cornmaze (and since it's outside), one of my all time favorite grab bag toys when I was a kid was silly string. Other items that come to mind are corn-on-the-cob popping corn (strawberry corn is great), a farmer's bandana, or a little painted pumpkin (that they could use later for Halloween). I also did a quick search at Oriental Trading Company for Farm Party Theme. They have a bunch of cute stuff you might like. I've done a version of the animal baloons (Martha Stewart at Wal-Mart) and they're a lot of fun, too.

Hope this helps

 

How about if you sign the your son's name on the invitations for the boys, and your daughters name on the invite for the girls. I always do 3 "invites", they are all the same except Marcus' friends get one with his name, Jonathan's get one with his name and mutual friends will get one with both names. It really doesn't matter what you say regarding gifts, in that most will do something for each--since they are in the same class--or will get something that they can play together--you simply cannot control that.

 

That's exactly what I did this year, since the girls were in different classes.

Since you're doing a corn maze, could they decorate a little pumpkin for the party favor?

Sounds like the party will be a blast!

 

For past parties, Hayden has invites with just his name that go to his friends, and Brady has the same for his friends. While they do have mutual friends, we don't send any invites with both their names on them. Whoever is in the same class as the invited child sends the invite to that child.

 

i was going to make the same suggestion about signing it just from one kid or the other when appropriate.

but i also wanted to say that a good friend of ours does the same kind of birthday party for her daughter - she will be 5 this oct and has done the same party (hayride, pumpkin picking, etc at a farm) every year since she was 3 and all of the kids (and adults) LOVE it!!! it will be a blast!

 

This is exactly what I do for our girls when we have a friends party too.