1St Birthday Party

If you do some sort of animal theme you can adopt an animal at the zoo (only $35 at Lincoln Park Zoo) from "___'s first birthday party attendees and give out copies of the certificate. This is what we just did for my son's first birthday party, which was monkey themed. Now the kids can all go to the zoo and visit their animal.

Since winter is approaching, you can have a "winter" theme party. In the invitations tell guest to come in their hats and scarves and boots. Heavy coats may be too hot indoors. You can give packages of hot cocoa with marshmallows to each guest. The kids can build snowmen out of marshmallows, pretzel sticks (arms), red licorice string (scarf) and cake decorating gel (face). Look online for game ideas. Or a Fall party theme will go great too. Each family can get a medium size pumpkin to take home and decorate (or large if you have the $). There are a ton of decorations on sale right now for fall at Joann Fabrics and places like that. You can fill a kiddie pool or 2 with fake leaves (or even real ones) and have prizes at the bottom. The kids love playing in leave piles. Again, there has to be activities for Fall or Farvest parties online. What about a party at a Pumpkin Patch or an Apple Orchard? Just some ideas. Hope you all have a great time!
NJ

I didn't want to get carried away with my daughters 1st bday party favors either. We decided to do a pinata and fill it with inexpensive things for all the kids, for example: headbands, small squirt guns, candy, pencils, bubbles, stickers, etc. I got most of the stuff at Target. All the kids got little bags to fill them up with the goodies. I did save some stuff on the side for the littlest kids that didn't grab enough stuff. This might only work if you have a basement to hang the pinata in (if this is a winter birthday). All the kids had so much fun with it, every age!

For my daughter's second birthday her colors were red and white. For favors, I baked sugar cookies and put red and white m&m's in the frosting on top. (you can get the solid color bags in all kinds of colors) I bought a bunch of chinese take out boxes and put a few cookies in each with some red saran wrap and put a cute bow on the top. Oh, I think I also put some of that shredded paper in the box to keep the cookies from moving around too much. They looked really cute and since we had so many different age groups, I figured everyone would like the cookies!!

Kind of going along with your past theme...what about a flower?? I was at Walmart & apparently this is the best time to plant certain flowers. I'm a huge fan of tulips, and this is the time to plant tulip bulbs. They have packs of 12 bulbs for about $4 or so. Also, Michaels has teeny little flower post, very inexpensive, in which you could maybe plant a flower seed of some sort??
I've never done favors like that, so I'm new to it all. But, I hope my suggestions are some-what helpful!!
J.

You could do something along the lines as your 1st borns, a packet of pink & purple morning glory seeds, with a small starter pot. Or since it is fall, a small mum they can plant in their gardens after the party.

Good luck,
B.

I LOVE the seeds for the butterfly bush....and the butterfly theme.....so cute....I am so going to use that idea this summer for my daughters' birthday party!

For my son's...it was John Deere theme...I took old babyfood jars...Spray painted the lids green and yellow. Put m&ms in them and bought yellow and green balloons and attached them. Cheap and easy! The kids loved it...young and old..if really young kids, put gerber stars or cheerios or fish.

You know I have to go with the other moms on sticking with your other child's theme! But the only thing about just giving out just 1 bulb, parents are going to plant just 1 bulb in their yard. So maybe you could find a packet of seeds for somekind of flower or bush that needs to be planted now (fall). I think that is a great idea. I know the favor bags are real popular and my kid come home with them all the time and even I do them. My kids are 9 and 6 but I think it is a wonderful idea, but my kids are boys and I dont think they want to decorate pots lol. But since this is a one year olds birthday I think giving out seeds is a good way of making our yards beautiful. Good Luck with your party.

Hi A.,
How about tulip bulbs? We did that for our wedding and it went over very well. Very pretty an inexpensive. You take some net circles (you can find them at any craft store), some ribbon and make a little sachet out of them. It would be a fun craft for the other little girls to do with their moms inside with a flower pot or outside in the yard, and you can certainly get them in pink and purple.
Good luck!
MC

We took a picture of our son with each family member who came to celebrate with us. We printed the pictures and sent each guest home with a personal memento of that day!

How about baby pine trees? Or a few tulip or daffodil bulbs each (which the kids can plant in a shallow pot and see bloom in spring)?

Edited to add: Costco has bags of about 60 bulbs for $15 right now.

Hi A.,

I have a mom-owned invitation business and I also sell party favors. I would be happy to email you samples for your daughter's birthday party. You can email me at ____@____.com to request party favor samples.

Thank you.
D.
Good Times Invitations