First birthday tips and advice?!?

[zephani]

Our Feb 09 bub's will be one in a few weeks :eek: And a friend on Facebook was asking a similar question so I thought I'd ask here as well.

Did you have a theme for bub's first birthday?

What decorations did you have?

What kind of cake did you have?

How many people did you invite?

What kind of food?

How long did the party go for?

Care to share pictures?

[Lipsmacker01]

This is a pic of DD1 on her first birthday

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg298/Lipsmacker01/DSC01928.jpg

I made a black forest cake (used one of the art from her wall in her bedroom!)

We didnt go nuts on decorating the house just a few silver happy birthday banners in the living room and some streamers taped from the ceilings.

It was only a small party with a few close family members. I can recall my daughter being very tired by 4pm and can remember giving her a catnap that afternoon as it was a very tiring day for her. She is a bit hyperactive!! Party began roughly around lunchtime. The relatives all left about 5pm ish around the time we sort of prepare for end of the night.

As far as food Im pretty sure I made a few slices (all containing chocolate!!) for the adults.

One caramel slice
One chocolate pistachio cranberry slice-this was awesome!! a real hit!!
and a hedgehog slice

The pressies she got were a strawberry shortcake doll and a ride on toy. She hated the doll then but loves it dearly now at 2.5 years of age. She still loves her ride on car, that was only about $25.

The reason I chose to do a froggie for her cake is because she was really fond of all her bedrooom decor and I wanted to do something she could relate to. Now at 2.5 she is hinting me that she wants a 'princess cake'!! Might be a bit more challenging!! All the little bits and pieces like flower decorations for cake I purchased at a proper cake store and are edible.

I really wasnt prepared to spend $60-80 that they quoted on a chocolate mud cake so opted to make one myself since I can bake!!


Good luck :)

[MissMetal]

are you referring to all the questions ive been posting on my status lately?? :laughing::laughing:

[zephani]

Yes Miss Metal you are the friend I'm talking about :wave:

[BabyPaparazzi]

We had DD's at a local child safe park. She had it combined with her cousin her is 3 weeks older.

We just invited close friends and close family, so about 30. Had a sausage sizzle on bread for the adults and nibbles, and simple sandwiches and fruit for the kids. I made their cakes to suit the theme.

Just simple ballons and streamers in pink, black and silver. We picked the time to suit their naps and it went for around 3 hours.

The theme was little punk rockers because it suits them cause they are far from little princesses or fairies (not in a bad way, they just play together at a hundred miles an hour and very loudly), so we dressed them in hot pink, did their hair and got some badges and stuff from best and less.

http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad72/studymum/P1010514.jpg

[gizmoduckus]

Bel04, that picture is soooo cute.

We are having a big bash for L's first birthday. It is something that we do and this year he definitely deserves it.

I am doing a sesame street theme. I have made most of the decorations myself. I just painted a whole lot of sesame street characters to put on the walls. I am going to buy rolls of the tablecloths in blue, yellow, green and red and I am going to have helium balloons (that we will do ourselves) as centrepieces in the same colours.

I have ordered a cake with a sesame street theme from a lady who does all of our big special occasions. Have no idea what she is doing because I just rang her up and told her the theme but she always does a fantastic job so I trust her.

We are having a BBQ. It is going to start at 3pm where we will have a few games and stuff. Then will probably serve food at around 5:30pm and it will just end when the kids get tired and they all go home. Usually most of our friends offer to make a dessert or a salad, so all I really have to organise is the meat and drinks.

I have also organised some sesame street theme games. One is guess how many cookies are in cookie monsters jar. I also have pin the nose on elmo and a cookie monster pinata.

[naebie]

We had a BBQ at the local park, with mostly family and a few friends. I invited all of my cousins, in the hopes that DD would have some other kids to play with, but only one out of my 10 cousins came :(

I made it a lunch time thing, starting at 11.30, but if I could change it I would make it in the afternoon- DD decided she wouldn't have her morning nap, and I was rushing around like a headless chook! If it had been in the arvo DD would have definitely had a nap, even if it was cut short by the party, it wouldve been something! It was a 2 hour party, but it ran over, ending up 3 hours, and with the setting up and packing away the marquee, we were down there for about 4-5

DD had a great day, we didn't go overboard with the decos because we spent so long putting up the Marquee type thing, as our park has no shelter. We had a banner that said "Baby's First Birthday" and some streamers. DD had a bib from Best and Less that said "I'm the birthday princess"
We didn't have a theme, we just had bright coloured serviettes and plates and cups.

My sister made the cake as her pressie to DD, it was really great, it was a cat coloured the same as our cat, iut looked so realistic that DD wouldn't let us cut it, she cried and cried! Luckily my sister had iced all of the 'cut off' pieces (DDs cake was shaped) and there was enough cake for everyone without even cutting her actual cake.

Food- We had a BBQ with sausages and chicken and vegie shish kebabs, I also made a sandwich platter, with egg and lettuce, ham salad, cheese etc sandwiches, while we were waiting on the BBQ. There were fruit skewers with strawbs, grapes, melon balls, a veggie platter with carrot, celery & cucumber sticks with a tzatziki dip and garlic lebanese bread that I baked in the oven for 5 mins, and some other nibbles like corn chips and pretzels with dips.
I made jelly cups, and DD's great grandma made matchsticks.