When planning your child’s birthday party there is a lot to consider. I must admit for H’s first birthday I had all the details figured out way before his birthday and now that Mr. H is a big brother I just don’t have the same amount of time and energy to put into planning. That is why I love Pinterest! I was able to spend a few minutes here and there to search for ideas for H’s second birthday. To make the planning more manageable you can break it into categories and focus on one at a time.
First things first you need to nail down a theme. We went with a “Henry the green engine” theme for Henry’s first birthday; it was just a spin off of a Thomas theme but it worked wonderfully because there is an engine named Henry. And we chose “Cars and Trucks” for his second because he loves all things with wheels. So deciding a theme is not too hard, just pick something that interests your child and run with it.
Now that you have your theme you need to think about the guest list. Who would your little one like to have at their party and who would you enjoy having there?
While you are thinking about guest list you need to keep venue in mind; can I fit X number of people in my home? at ….? If you intend to have the party at a different location you need to be mindful of space. How many people can be accommodated, is there space for the children to run around? And space to open presents and have snacks/cake? I’m working on a post regarding great party locations in Spruce and Stony, check back later this week for that! We decided to have H’s party at our house because we didn’t have a huge amount of people coming over and O would be able to have an uninterrupted nap. This worked really well for us this year but next year we will mostly likely go to a local location.
Now that you have you theme and location you can think about the décor. Does your location allow you to bring outside decorations? And is there space to hang things on the wall or from the ceiling? Once you find out how much space you have to decorate you can think about what types of decorations you intend to put up. This is where Pinterest comes in so handy! Search your theme or general décor ideas and you will find a lot of great and not so great ideas. When I was looking for Car/Truck ideas I searched décor ideas, party ideas and “cars and trucks”. I decided to keep it simple this year since H is only two and just picks a few great ideas and went with them. My favorite was the garbage bag road! It was so simple and turned out great; tape black garbage bags to the floor in a straight line and use yellow tape to add the yellow lines.
Last but not least you need to think about food; is the party happening over a meal time or will the guest be arriving after they just ate? Once you know if you need just snacks or a meal too you can really have fun with the type of food you will be serving. Personally I like to have a similar theme for the food as for the overall party. So for H’s Car and Truck theme we provided snacks that “fit” within that theme; we had Spare Tires (one bite brownies), Antifreeze (Green Jello), Stop Light Peppers, Dip sticks (pretzel sticks with chocolate dipped ends), a Fire Truck Cake and a few other non-themed snacks. Again I looked to Pinterest for inspiration and everything turned out great, although it doesn’t take much to impress a two year old and his two year old friends anyways.
Good Luck with your party planning!