Hello Moms! My husband and I have decided to have a family gathering for our son's first birthday party in February. We'll have both sets of grandparents plus a few aunts and uncles. (No other kids... we just didn't want it to get too crazy or have the older kids overshadow our little one on his big day. We could invite just one other child, but how would we explain to other parents who are friends of ours why they weren't invited?)
Anyway, Does anyone have any suggestions as to little games or activities the relatives might like to play together... just to make the party more than just sitting around eating cupcakes and helping the little guy open his presents? Thanks so much!!
Thank you to everyone who offered activity ideas for my son's first birthday party! (I thought I sent messages thanking some of you individually some time ago, but it doesn't appear that they went through.) We had the party this weekend and had a really good time. We had a personalized word search game and everyone signed a scrapbook page, along with opening presents and having lunch and cake. We did end up having one little girl there and her mother who are friends of the family, and everyone got along great. It was a good sized group: not too big as to be overwhelming, and not too small as to feel insignificant.
It is a kids party. Kids should be invited. why even bother having any games when there is no kids to play them? How boring to have a childs first birthday and no other children to play with or have any fun with.
In the past, I have experienced that if you are having a party for a young child and you invite the parents they automatically assume that the children are invited and bring them along. I had a HUGE party for my son's first party. There were so many kids, but everyone knows they are there for HIS birthday. It was fun, I couldn't imagine all those adults at the party without the kids.
Hi L.,
I read your responses and feel like you are getting yelled at for your party choices. If you want an adult party, have one! Sometimes first birthdays get out of control. I have been to both, kids and kidfree and both were special and nice.
Some games could be:
1. pin the paci on your babies mouth, a true or false "how well do you know your child",
2. a running poem ( you start the poem with _________is a special boy/girl, the person adds the next line and folds it over, then you pass and continue adding and folding the open the poem and read it),
3. take a polaroid picture/or quickly print a digital picture of each guest and put them on a scrapbook page and let each guest write a birthday wish for the baby next to their picture (if you are too frantic to print the pictures, take them, and put a post it on the scrapbook page with the persons name and have them write then add the picture later)
4. have a tower building contest and have the baby knock down the tower: the tallest tower wins
5. Bubbble blowing contest: the most bubbles win, the baby can pop them.
Hope that helps
EM
I am not sure about games but something cute that I have seen is a small separate cake for the little one with a special character on it makes for great pictures.
One cute idea might be allowing your little one to draw pictures in pudding. The family may enjoy giggling at your little ones reactions.
A little about me:
I am a stay at home mom of 4. My oldest is 5 1/2.
We had a big birthday party for my daughters 1st birthday and second birthday. Our family and friends all came and some of them brought their kids. There were only a few kids there because of being sick or for other reasons, she still was still the attention of the day since it was her day. This is a childs birthday so i think there should be kids invited.
my advice: invite kids! We just hosted my grandsons first birthday party and it was a blast! Have a free cake from Kroger made for a smashing success, make it clear that this is a SPECIAL cake.
Kids, specially a bit older ones, love to participate, help the BD child blow the candle out, help him open presents. He is too young to know what to do and all the children feel very useful and important by showing him what to do. Have small party favors made up for them and your party will be a success. All adults will enjoy the kids as well, this way you don't have to entertain them, they will be too busy entertaining themself. :)
Bingo, I had a huge party and most of the kids where running around playing in small groups. Bingo saved the day beacuse I could have anyone pick up calling at any point and tent to what I needed to. Also it is easy and everyone knows how to play. You can do a twist on the triditional bingo if you want and do one with words, phrases, or other things that would personalize it. Another really cute thing the adults at my party enjoyed was a personalized word search you can find them online for free and maybe even a crossword. You think up the words and put them in and the computer makes the crossword or wordsearch for you then you print up as many copies as you want. I hope this has helped, and I wish you luck on your little man's big day.
I am having a 1st Birthday party for my twins soon as well. I am going to keep the party to just immediate family because gatherings can totally get out of control and it is really about your son's 1st birthday!! I think most people responding are misunderstanding your posting. You are not inviting adults and asking they don't bring children but inviting those family members who don't have older children-right? Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful day and don't pay too much attention to the other negative responses! I think the smasher cake will be enough entertainment~
I know this isn't a game like you requested. But it might be fun to create a time capsule of sorts? Have each family member right note to your child that he can open on his tenth birthday. They could make predictions or tell a story about him as a baby, about his parents or about himself. You could also enclose a few photos of the birthday party so he can see the attendees as they looked back then.
You could give each attendee a note card and seal them up in an envelope.
I Know how crazy it can be to plan a birhtday party. I Have three myself 2 Boys and 1 Girl. Anyways how i did it was to invite grandparents and Others who had children that were around the same age as my child and told the rest of the family that it was for the child not a gathering for the Whole family. And hope that they would understand becasue our family is just to big. I hope that everything works out for you and your family. Happy Birthday to the Baby :)
Hi L.! My daughter just had her first birthday party December 8. We had a big party and kids were invited, but I think you could probably play some of the same games... we put our daughter's first and middle names on a large poster and then had everyone write down as many words as they could using the letters in her name. We also did a true/false quiz about her. It turned out to be a lot of fun & family members found out a lot of new things that they didn't already know.
Whatever you end up doing - have a great time & cherish every moment!
Have all the adults bring at least one good photo of themselves when they were young....around one or two. Number each photos and put them on display and have each person write down who they think each person is. The one who gets most, wins some little gift. It's a great conversation game with fun memories when lots of family is involved.
(Just include the note to bring a photo in with your invites when you mail them.)
It just seems a bit strange that you are leaving the kids out of a child's birthday party. I don't think your little one will be over-shadowed...it is his Big Day! Keep it simple if you do not wish for the party to get to crazy. I do think that the kids would most appreciate games and activities as opposed to the adults, though.
L.
That is the most riduculous thing I have ever heard. The adults are going to play what? If I got invited and was told not to bring my kids I would NOT go. Yes turning one is a big deal but whose he going to play with? Do you keep all other kids away from him at all times? It sounds like you just want a gathering with the family, not for his birthday party.
Carol
I am not sure why you wouldn't invite any other kids. Noone is going to over shadow your sons day. We had a huge party for my son when he turned two (he is disabled and wasn't quite ready for it at 1). A bunch of kids were there and it was fine. If you are invinting all adults it will be more like a family gathering. You won't always be able to have all the attention focused on your son so why start now? That is a bad habit for him to get into. I don't think the adults would enjoy playing games, it's a kids party it should be with kids!
Good Luck and happy birthday to the little one.
Jenn.......
We have the problem of knowing too many people. ha ha! So our parties tend to get a little large and crazy too. In my opinion if you want a small party you should just invite family, or just invite friends. If you try to blend a few of each, then that is where you're going to hurt feelings. You can honestly say "we just had a small family party" to your friends. Or vice versa. In regards to little games or activities, I'm not sure about that. I've never heard of the adults playing games or activities at a one year old's birthday party. We also have our baby's one year birthday coming up in February. So that kind of threw me for a loop, never heard of that. If you have some kids there, that I guess would be different. But to each their own!
