First Birthday Party: What We Did

What? Birthday party/BBQ for Mrs T to celebrate turning one year old!
Where? Our house/garden
When: Saturday afternoon – 2pm – 7pm
Who? Around 30 adults and 12 children
Theme: Jungle
Dress: Casual. Some opted for a safari inspired dress, others full on animal costume. Think this young man won the (unofficial) best costume prize.

Food: Burgers, sausages, marinated chicken drumsticks/thighs, pork ribs, lamb kebabs, feta salad, pasta salads.

Drink: Lots of it.
Cake: Very kindly made by my sister. A magnificent, delicious, two tiered chocolate cake, one tier with zebra icing, the other covered in yellow icing with lion, giraffe and elephant figurines. The decadent cake went down VERY well indeed (although pretty tough to cut into hence my weird arm movement)!! Was enough for everyone with some left for us to enjoy over the next few days.

Children’s Entertainment: Ball pit, tunnel, baby walker, electric bubble maker, other children (the best entertainment – the older children had Mrs T in stitches!

What became the children’s entertainment? Dipping their hands/fingers/arms in the container of cold iced water holding the booze. Spare clothes were required.

Weather: Rain was forecast so the day before we nipped to Homebase to purchase a gazebo – was only £20- and completely worth it! Spent about an hour putting it up but it did rain, albeit only for 20 minutes or so, but it meant people could stay outside and weren’t bothered by the downpour.

Decorations and party bags: Lots of balloons, first birthday and jungle banners, a inflatable monkey. Party bags included animal finger puppets and animal face masks. Mostly purchased from Party Pieces – well, it has the royal seal of approval these days. Arrived within two days, packaged well and looked pretty good when house/garden was decked out. Only issue was with these hanging string things- got them in a right tangle but improvised.

Overall conclusion: The day went really well. The kids loved playing together and the adults seemed to really enjoy it (I hope they did anyway). Most importantly, Mrs T had a brilliant time – was particularly loving playing with the other children. From a personal point of view, I just wish I could have spoken to more people who came. Thank you SO MUCH for all the presents and cards. Really overwhelming!!

TIPS
Be organised. If having an outside do – check the weather forecast. It would have been a bit of a disaster if we hadn’t bought the gazebo ( we have definitely got more organised since having children). We also made sure we had the BBQ on well before everyone arrived.
Preparation – Do as much as you can before the day. We put a lot of the decorations up the day before, sorted the party bags and the photos of Mrs T. But, we probably could have done more before the day arrived.
Provide plenty of food/drink – Keeping people fed and watered is a must
Get help – If you know someone who is good at cakes, ask if they will help out and make it as a present. If a friend is arty, ask if they could do some face painting. If you have musical mate, see if they will play a few songs as children’s entertainment. Get a couple of close friends around a bit earlier who are happy to help put up decorations, blow up balloons etc
ENJOY – Try not to get too stressed (hard I know)!