6Th Birthday Guest List - Lots of Kids

Why is 2 parties not an option? We always do a family party and sometimes a friends party. If you do Chuck E Cheese, I would only do that for friends. Once kids are in kindergarten the parents usually don't stay. Even if they do, that's on them. You only need to consider the kids.

My kids' birthdays are 4 days apart, and while we have done it in the past, a party for each kid was just too much on me. This year, we had it at the bowling alley, and it was the best party we've done! Adults could bowl, kids could bowl. We had a blast.
I especially loved it because the bowling alley staff did everything. All we had to do was show up. In my opinion, those types of parties are the most enjoyable for everyone (esp me!).

I love parties, and entertaining, and think big parties are great, as long as that's what YOU want, and are comfortable with.
My comfort level was home, where I was in control and not too many people.
So really, that's my advice, YOU are the parent, and it's up to you to set limits.
As much as I hate Chuck E Cheese (awful food, and it basically sucks the money right out of your wallet) we did a few parties there.
What do YOU want to do? I have young adult children and I will tell you now that if you start letting them set demands at age six your life will be a living hell going forward :-(

I've been known to have large birthday parties as well. If it's in your budget, I would consider getting a bounce house delivered and go from there. You can plan a theme around a particular bounce house if you want. That's what I've done. I did a princess theme and a fireman theme one. It's not that expensive, especially considering how many kids there are and it's sometimes cheaper to do it yourself than to go to a place. The adults love it because they can just sit in a lawn chair and watch the kids bounce and run around. Usually I put out some temporary tattoos and do a face painting station (recruit an older cousin). I use Crayola watercolor pencils for face painting because it's cheap, not messy and easy to use, oh and also bubbles are a good thing for a party too. I make my bubbles in large rubbermaid containers with Joy liquid soap and water, and then fill them with bubble wands, hangers, loops of yarn, slotted spoons, six pack holders, etc. It's great fun!

With the large parties I just do snacks and cake. Costco has the BEST price on cake and they are delicious!!! I sometimes just order them to be left blank on the top and then I decorate them according to the theme.

I would decide what YOUR limits are and go from there. If 50 people is your limit, great. If 5 is your limit, that's fine too.

Honestly, we started doing parties at locations where the kids could invite as many people as they want to. The local pool holds 360 and the basketball court was 275, we'll never reach those numbers. But we host parties there - and allow families to come and stay. My mom is a teacher so she gets a huge discount on pizza's, and BJ's provides the cake for under $40 - a huge one. So we spend less than $500 for all 3 of our kids to have a party with unlimited guests. We have been doing that for about 3 years now, so when the youngest turned 6.

However, we don't expect family to come to those parties. We do dinner with the family on the actual birthday and that suffices.

We've done big parties at home and at private locations.

It depends on your budget and the party purpose. For us, our daughter is a Christmas baby and we celebrate her birthday on her birthday the 27th. It is surprising how many parents are ready to drop kids off and go chill out a couple of hours that close to Christmas!! She has not had a bday party since her 13th when she wanted a dance party and we did that at the club. Most birthdays after that were us going to dinner as a family or her going to dinner with a group of her friends. All other parties were just social parties.

We've also done very large back to school parties, end of school parties, Halloween parties, July 4 parties and crawfish boils. I've had 125+ people in my backyard at a crawfish boil which was most of our block and families.

I've done several parties at my home where I catered food and I've had as many as 80 teens at my house (OUTSIDE). Depending on the ages and number of parents who stick around, I have also hired an off duty officer or 2 starting around age 13 just to ensure things went smoothly. This was especially helpful when the parties had teens around 16 or so. Around here, it is a common thing to hire officers to be around if needed and if a teen leaves the party, they do not come back. Safety issues regarding alcohol, etc. Parents are notified ahead of time that officers will be in attendance and if their child leaves the gated area, they are gone for the night.

I realize your child is 6 and not yet ready for the off duty officer but you are headed in that direction for later years so think about that. It is cheap $100 or less and you have authorities right there to help you if something gets out of control. We've never had an issue and we started this when we had a party at the country club and it is a club rule there to have officers on hand. I like that rule.

When daughter was younger (3-7ish) we had several themes.... magician, petting zoo, a monkey that entertained and loved attention. We usually hired a DJ for parties as well because they helped with games and prizes for everyone.

Have fun.. Just remember to figure out your limits, set the limit and stick with the limits. Sometimes it is fun to just have a small party and there is nothing wrong with that.

We have a big family-8 kids 8 and under plus 2 more on the way. Add the kids from my daycare-10+, family friends with kids, our friends with kids, you get the picture.
Our kids' first birthday parties were 60+ people at a local park or Nana's clubhouse and pool. Now my two biggest are in school, so there's also a whole classroom (2 in my daughter's case) full. My bigs wanted to have their 6th and 4th parties jointly last year. I thought it was a great idea-one theme, one set of decorations, one day of stress, done! HA! 48 kids total, over 80 people for cake. It was absolute INSANITY! I'm so glad I didn't have to set up, clean up, anything.
We never do birthday parties at home. There's just not enough room and there's no enjoyment for me in stressful cleaning for the party and then having to clean again afterwards. We do parties at parks, bounce house places, trampoline parks, etc. For us, it's important that the party cost doesn't count adults attending, just kids. I'd love to do a zoo party, but they charge admission for everyone attending and it would be exorbitant even with our member discount.

My friend has a huge family and many friends throughout their community. They have their enormous parties at their community hall. The hall is large enough to fit everyone with plenty of seating for the older people, but lots of room for the younger ones to play. They just bring the food and add some decorations and it's always a good time.

They've also hired out a restaurant and just made room for the kids. As well, they've had backyard parties with their pool. They usually have them catered with simple party food.

Good luck :) sounds fun

We've always done family parties. If there's a friend invited, it's ONE friend. We don't get too bent out of shape about hurt feelings, and since this is the way it's always been done, neither do the kids.

I like the idea of not including more friends until they're over 10 as suggested below. Smart idea!

i'm not a huge-party person, but it's cool that you are, and that you know it, and that you are aware of your own comfort levels.
having them at home is great, and often the easiest, especially in your case where it's big families and you simply put out the call for a potluck. but then you've got to cook, clean and provide entertainment. i'm fine with that, but i always instituted the number-of-guests-equals-years-being-celebrated rule so it wasn't so unwieldy.
are you okay with cooking, cleaning and providing entertainment for vast herds?
if not, and since your daughter wants CEC, why not? but then unless you've also got vast funds, you have to pare your list down to sensible number. just count kids- if parents want to stay, they pay.
and i don't see why 2 parties isn't an option. so what if the cousins are close? doesn't mean they have to attend every single thing. if they come to the family party, they don't even have to know about the 'friend' party. and if they find out, it's on their own parents to work with them on the sensible 'you don't have to attend every single thing' life lesson.
khairete
S.

I would just go with the Chuck e Cheese party. You might not end up with as many kids as you think. People are so busy all the time with their kids sports and activities.

I just had my son's 6 yr party there. I knew for sure I'd have 12 kids there, with my own 3 plus close family and friends. Then I also invited 10 of his good friends from school. Of those 10, only 3 rsvp'ds yes, and one of them didn't show up. So it was the original 12, plus 2 kids.

As for the food, the kids get pizza with the price you pay per child, and you may want to order add'l pizza or other food for the adults.

I had my son's party on a Friday from 4-6 pm. I offered to get food for the adults that were there, but not one took me up on it.

The party worked out to be pretty affordable, and my son and his friends/cousins had a blast.

We always have a family party and then when the kids turned about 10 instead of having a huge party with EVERYONE, we still had the family party and then they were allowed to invite 1-3 friends to do something "fun" on a different weekend. They either went to the movies, bowling, laser tag, pool party, jump house, etc. That was WAY more reasonable than having a huge party. And they got to spend time with the kids they chose instead of having a ton that just run around and you don't even see. Good luck.

By age 6, parties can be drop off, so you can eliminate her friends' parents from the guest list. That should help cut it down by a lot, even with the adults in your family attending.

We typically have 12-20 kids at our parties, though as my kids get older, I am trying to actually cut that down to a max of 12 or so.

We have a big family and have done a number of parties at the local park or pool. I have asked other family members to bring a dish (kind of pot luck) but not friends to do that. I can fit 60 hotdogs in a crockpot like a professional :) Our park does charge a small fee for reserving the shelter, but yours may not. We do lots of outside games and the kids make up their own versions of tag that involve the park equipment or the pool (depending on where we are having it).

Doing it this way, I don't worry too much about RSVP - I just buy in bulk and freeze the left overs. Hotdogs, chips, grapes, cake, and maybe a salad (usually that's what the other family members bring).

It is "controlled chaos" but everyone always has a good time. All the adults usually stick around and chat (and sometimes make bets on the first kid to cry about something).

Have fun no matter what you decide!

I limit my DD to 12 friends (because many packs of party things come in 12) and it seems to be a good number. We fudge a little for small siblings of cousins or close friends but the main guest list is 12, minus a few for attrition. If you want it to mostly be a friend party, then have a few friends and not the family. You might consider a birthday dinner for people in the same month or week vs every cousin attending every birthday for every other cousin. Now that our kids are older, my cousins and I no longer expect each other's children at our parties, since the kids see them other times and the kids also have their own school/neighborhood friends.

Around 7 or so, start nudging parents toward drop and run if you know them well. It will help limit the random adults at the party.

For my son's 6th b'day, we did Chucky Cheese, which he thought was great and the kids had fun...We had, I think maybe 10, and had the grandparents....

And as much fun as the kids had, I wouldn't do it again, even though we got for virtually nothing but the deposit....They mucked up.....the oven broke and we had no food except for the veggie plate I got for the grown ups and the birthday cake we broought...........we got lots and lots and lots and and lots and lots of tokens and lemonade,,,and did I mention the kids had a great time and never really noticed the lack of food...meanwhile, I'm having a coronary...LOL.....but I digress...

Have fun!!!