family fun
Tips for Making Party Planning Easier
family fun • entertainment & parties
When I was a kid, birthday parties consisted of a few close family members, balloons for decorations, and a homemade cake. Things have changed quite a bit. A birthday party is a production. Equipped with themes, party favors, a specialized tiered cake, and an invite list that includes everyone you know with a child.
Turner's New Years party
I feel like I have done more work to prepare for my son Turner’s first birthday party than I did to welcome him into this world. Here are a few tips I have used to make the process a little easier.
Tips for Making Party Planning Easier
- Pick a Theme - We call Turner our Turner-saurus Rex, so we picked dinosaurs to be his party theme. A theme made everything else kind of fall into place. Most party supply chains have party packages to fit just about any theme you can think of, so all of your plates, decorations, party favors, and anything else you need can be easily found.
- Timing is everything - Time of day is crucial for party planning. Make sure the time is convenient for your child. Turner naps like clockwork from 10 until 11:30 a.m. and then again about 3:30 p.m. We knew we had to work with those times to make sure the party fit Turner’s schedule. The middle of the day, right around lunch time, also works pretty well, because it makes it easy to have some light snacks and food options like hotdogs. Anything earlier would interfere with breakfast, and anything later would mess up dinner.
- Find a balance of cupcakes and cake - When I envisioned Turner’s first birthday party, I had the visual of a sweet little boy’s face covered in icing. So naturally, I want a cake for Turner. But a cake big enough to feed everyone, would break the bank. So we elected to get Turner a small cake, complete with a T-Rex on top, just for him, and then have cupcakes for everyone else. Cupcakes come out to be cheaper than cake, and you don’t have to worry about cutting everyone a piece. Cupcakes are also an easy way to mix up flavors between vanilla and chocolate.
- Take pictures, but don't forget about video - Did your parents tease and embarrass you with videos of your childhood? Since everyone has a smartphone, we are so ready to snap pictures with our phones that become the only memory we have of any moment. Remember video as well. Video cameras are virtually obsolete. But instead of taking a two minute video with your phone, with the risk of losing it down the road, remember what it was like to watch videos of your childhood. Don’t you want your children to have that same experience?
Birthday parties are a lot of work these days. But the most important thing to remember, is that the whole intent is to celebrate the day your sweet little one came into this world.
What tips do you have to making party planning easier?
Image from Wikimedia
I am the mother to a beautiful little boy named Turner, who is 10-months new. I have two full-time jobs and try to balance that with being a full-time mommy. I write for a living, so I decided that the best way to remember everything about my venture into motherhood is to write about it. Being a mother is all still so new to me, but I have loved every ounce of Turner coming into my life, and I know Andrew, Turner’s dad, feels the same way. My blog, Adventuring Into Motherhood, is a way to document our feelings and adventure into becoming parents. I blog to document his firsts, his milestones, his naps… anything about him and learning to be a mother.
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- Tips for Making Party Planning Easier - April 25, 2014
