First Birthday Party Ideas

My son is obsessed with cars, cars in general ans CARS, the movie. We made a CAR WASH from dollar store items, (streemers, pom-poms as the washers, and blue poster borads taped together to make the lane to go through. We downloaded the car wash song and bought a bubble machine, $20 incl. the soap from the party store.) We cut up cardboard boxes and painted them as race cars for the kids to drive through the car wash. the kids loved it , and i had a great time making the cars and car wash. We did concession themed foods such as hotdogs, chicken nuggets, wagon wheel pasta, and oreo's (wheels). Good luck and have fun!

My friend offered to let us use her electric party bubble machine. We had a dozen 1-7 year olds at my daughter's 1st birthday party and EVERYONE had a great time. It kept them occupied for 2 hours and it was adorable seeing them all dance in the bubbles and pop them. They cost $10-$40

For favors I made chocolate dipped oreos with sprinkles and put each one in a candy favor bag (from a craft store). For the little ones I bought bath squirters.

When we had my oldest sons 3rd birthday party we were poor college students. Incedently most of the people we invited were poor college students. What we did was instead of asking people to bring gifts we asked them to get a inexpensive gift and wrap it and we did a gift exchange with the kids. Everybody got a present and I suppose you could make that a kind of game and I didnt have to fuss about making party sacs to take home.
We ate pizza and soda and I made two death by chocolate cakes cos it was yummy and cheap! Everybody loved the food and we all had lots of fun.
We actually did it a joint birthday party with a friend as her daughters b/day was the day after. We split the cost between us. Maybe if family is coming you can ask them to bring a bottle of soda or something. I know I always offer to help and bring something in my family when theres a party cos we are so close knit. We always want to help each other out. Not sure what yr family's like if they would consider that rude.
As far as party games go, my friend tried to do party games like follow the leader that she thought would be simple but the kids just didnt get it and wanted to run around.(We had mostly 2and 3 year olds). Maybe if there are more kids at the younger end you could do a one or two simple action songs or finger plays. Kids at that age love them and is more age appropriate.
Hope these ideas help!

Elmo & Sesame Street is always an idea. I did this theme for my son's 2nd bday. In fact the Dollar Store should have plates, cups, napkins & table cloths. I stuck to red, blue, green & yellow colors. I hung streamers from the curtain rods (to look like curtains) in the two main rooms (kitchen & eating area). Balloons and I made signs "Happy Birthday 'Name' Brought to You by the Letter 'son's initial' and the Number '1'. I gave Sesame Street coloring books and regular crayons, stickers and magic washcloths. All from the dollar store.
We played pin the nose on Elmo (bought at a party store) & musical Elmo. I gathered any things I had at home to use for decorations. I put paper roll on the tables w/cups of crayons and washable markers. And did guess how many cookies in Cookie Monster's Cookie Jar (I had older kids there too) and guess how many goldfish in the fish bowl.
Food, I did chicken nuggets and MacnCheese for the kids and wraps and salad for the mom's.

My youungest will be 3 in February and when we have birthday party/Nascar party(the year he was born 2/14 my mom and i had a party planned for the 18th and we still did it...i had alot of help with the baby and the older 2).
But we have ours as bday parties/family get togethers(since this is pretty much when we all get together)I shop at birthday express for everything.We did blue for the boys(duckies)and pink for our girl on their first birthdays.....but personally i feel until they get in school parties are more for parents/families than the child,they really don't understand birthdays.But they are alot of fun to have.
And we never really had games or anything we just let the kids play with toys at the house...sorry no real help but have fun

I am budget mom too when it comes to planning parties. For moms with tight budgets, you may want to celebrate birthdays with minecraft themes or maybe lego. You wouldnt spend 50$ for everything. For a complete tableware lego themed birthday, like in this site: http://www.pixelpartydesigns.com/collections/birthday-par... ,you will spend less and children will surely enjoy the party. There are giveaways too in this site.

For my childrens' first birthdays I did "#1" theme in blue for my son, pink for my daughter. Streamers, paper plates, etc were inexpensive at a dollar store. Balls and bubbles make good party favors. We play with bubbles in the bathtub all year long. The Oriental Trading website has unique party accessories and favors that are reasonably priced.

We, too, invited the entire family. Most of the neices and nephews were 6 and under at that time so we didn't have organized games (too much difference in attention spans and abilities). Since they were summer parties we were outside. The kids played with balls, bubbles, frisbees. We took an inflatable ball pit outside. You could just let the kids create their own fun with your son's toys. But if you want something more organized maybe do simple crafts (crayons/coloring books, foamie stickers, etc) or let them make their own ice cream sundaes or decorate cookies/cupcakes. BTW, did you know that many bakeries/grocery stores will give you a free little "smasher" cake for a one year old when you order a cake from them?

Overall, my thought is that simple is the way to go for the little ones. As adults, we get all caught up on the festivities and creating memories but our babies don't have a clue as to what is going on. Be prepared to be flexible in case your son isn't in a partying mood. And don't forget to take pics so you can relive the memories through the years. Have fun!

My daughter will be one on Sunday. we are doing Elmo i rented a elmo costume and am having a family party also. we got bags and filled them with candy and toys.

I say keep it simple. Don't stress yourself out, your son won't even remember it! Just make sure you take lots of pictures. For my sons 1st birthday, I put some kraft(butcher) paper on all the tables with a little bucket of crayons so kids and adults could color/draw/write. I think I also had some Playdough to play with. I didn't do any games and just had some finger food type foods (cheese/crackers, chips, pretzels, cupcakes, mini sandwiches). I didn't any favors but one of my friends did some that were good from the dollar store (small soft cars, bubbles, small pack of Goldfish or animal crackers and some stickers).

Just remember don't stress about it, you won't have any fun and that is all your child wants is for mommy not to be running around all crazy.

I would keep it as low key as possible. At 1, he doesn't even really understand what is going on. Also, when my oldest was 1 we had a big family party for him and it was WAY TOO MUCH. Too many people and too much going on. He got really cranky, really quickly. A good rule of thumb is the age rule....(if the child is turning 3...have 3 other children at the party)
My bet is that the older kids would be happy coloring or doing a small craft. Good luck.

we had my sons 1st bday in October and just did a CARS theme from Disney. Some great ways to buy favors in bulk (I did this for the bday party and my wedding a few years ago) is to try ebay and try and buy everything from the same seller to save on shipping. We didn't do games because we didn't know what the weather would be like and a lot of the kids were too young to understand. All the kids got a goodie bag though :)

Pick a simple theme and you can reuse the things for years to come. For instance I used a ballon theme. I use the table cover and signs over and over again every year. The mylar ballons can be reused as well. I stick a straw in the valve and let the air out. Fold them neatly and they can be refilled next year. For the party just do deserts instead of a meal to save on money. Kids at this age are just just happy to run arround with one another, so I would not over focus on games. For favors you could make a personalized label with the childs name age and picture with a happy birthday message. Place the label on a candy bar (you could buy a case at Sam's club) or on bubbles or even a box of crayons. Have fun most importantly and make sure you have lots of pictures.

When my little boy turned one we had a big family party. I made it a picnic theme and got plain white paper table cloths. I had everybody bring some "Picnic" food item and I had boxes of crayons for each child as a favor. Even my son enjoyed scribbling all over the table cloth with the crayons. When some of the older (7,8)children got bored I showed them how to play tic-tac-toe and how to do the square game. Not sure what that game is called, but you draw a bunch of dots and someone makes a line each time and then they get to put their initials in the box they make and the one with the most boxes wins. This kept them entertained for almost an hour so with food presents and all we had a 2 1/2 hour party with no crying or boo hoos. All in all for 30 people it cost me about $100 and most of that was in the burgers and dogs. Also with everyone bringing something you know that all the kids and parents will have something that they will eat. That makes it easier on you when family members are on special diets.

We just had our daughter's first birthday and while it was a very hectic event, she had a blast. We also had a large number if children age 3 and under. We did not have any games, it would have been to much with all the kids running around and they really just enjoyed hanging out with each other. My daughter's birthday was also 3 days after Christmas so there new toys for everyone to play with. We served a large variety of subs-very kid friendly, chips, pretzels, spinach dip, tortilla roll-ups(with ham and cheese)and a green salad. We had a cake for dessert and she had her own smash cake. We didn't have many leftovers so it must have been a good menu. My only suggestion would be, let your son eat and then do cake within the hour so you will have time to open gifts before he has a meltdown from all the excitement. She got a little overstimulated after an hour and a half and was ready to be done with it all before she opened prestents. Good luck and let me know how it all turns out!