I told myself that I wouldn’t throw a birthday party for Ian this year and would just do parties every 5 or every other year … well I missed seeing my mommy friends and talking to adults about something other than work. Since I don’t stay at home I don’t get to have mid-week play dates and our weekends are so full that if there isn’t something planned we just want to do nothing! So I thought fine, I’ll have a party, but it won’t be themed or big or elaborate. I guess I just can’t help myself…because it was sort of themed “summer” and we went all out on the outdoor stuff.
Ian’s first and second birthday parties were at my parents’ house, they have a pool and who doesn’t love a pool party in the middle of summer!? Well I find that parents don’t actually want to get into a bathing suit and go swimming, so I decided lets have the party at our house and we’ll have an inflatable pool in our back yard so the kids who love water can have a great time and parents can sit and watch and mingle. We also have a little splash pad that we used and put a little plastic slide in it so the younger kids (under 2) could get wet and have fun without threat of the older rougher kids pushing them down in the water.
Well our backyard patio area had no chairs…or shade and our sliding door was awful to open and close. So we ended up getting 2 10×10 collapsible tents for shading the water activities, new patio furniture, new umbrella to shade the patio furniture, a fan, a mister for the parents to stay somewhat cool in our 100+ degree weather…….and a new patio sliding door. 😐 Now it’s much easier to let our kids play outside too, so it was all in all a good investment!
I ordered party favors from Oriental Trading Company and originally wanted to have the favors go in tiny little sand pails, but then I saw a dozen plush beach balls for $1.48 and couldn’t pass up on the deal. When everything arrived I quickly found that all the stuff wouldn’t fit in the pails…so I made drawstring backpacks to put all the little favors in and they turned out so cute! I had a bunch of chevron patterned cloth from Pick Your Plum and needed to use it. I don’t know why I buy pink and purple colored cloth when I have only boys…I guess I’m hoping my friends have girls so I can make their kids cute stuff, but everyone I know who is pregnant and in my close circle of friends is having boys! I still have so much random cloth in my huge Ikea bench drawers, but I’m such an amateur sewer and really have no time to sew. Oh well one day!
For the food we had a hot dog bar and an ice cream bar as well as other party food. I advertised we’d have pizza too but I forgot to order it, I don’t think anyone missed it. I did find a use for those little pails, I put the ice cream toppings in it. I tried to pre-scoop the ice cream and then put them back in the containers, but it didn’t work out like I planned and people still ended up scooping ice cream. I bought plastic containers off Amazon and it was plenty of room for ice cream and toppings. For the hot dog toppings I kept it pretty simple with ketchup, mustard, chili and Siracha!! I bought a cheese plate from Costco and served ranch dipping sauce inside a bell pepper. Ian’s birthday cupcakes were half ice cream and half cake topped with whipped cream, I got the idea from here.
We don’t have that many pictures without other people’s kids in it and we like to respect other’s privacy, especially when it comes to their kids. Plus Mr. A is pretty social at these things and forgets to take photos! We did however set up our color printer and we printed out pics for people as the party went on. The parents really liked that, since many times we take photos and never actually print them!
Ian had a great time and the next day he woke up asking if it was still his birthday party since the balloons were all still floating. I told him no and he sadly excepted it. I think he just wanted to open more presents…that kid loves presents.
