WFMW - Kids parties

As previously mentioned, Naomi just turned 2 and we had a small party for her little friends, on Sunday afternoon. Here are a few of the things that I found worked for me --

1. Don't feel obliged to invite every child they know. We invited 5 children, and it was just enough to have some fun chaos, but not so many that we were frazzled and cranky by the end.

2. Keep children's ages in a similar range. This makes planning activities, and timing, much easier. Advise parents of multiple children that activities etc will be aimed at the age group of your birthday child, so that they can make alternative arrangements or bring along appropriate toys for their other children.

3. It's not rude to set a finish time, and write it on the invitations. The finish time doesn't have to be set in concrete, but it will let everyone know that you are not having an open house all day, with meals provided! We did from 2 to 4pm, with afternoon tea party food. Everyone was aware that we weren't doing lunch or an evening meal.

4. Have age appropriate activities. We recently went to a 3-year old's party where they did 'pass the parcel'. This was a disaster. 2 - 3 year olds do NOT share well, and didn't really get the concept of only opening one layer of paper on the parcel! For Naomi's party, I got some individual little art canvases from the discount store, and each child painted their own artwork. I also pre-cooked cupcakes, and iced them, then put a bowl of assorted decorations (marshmallows, lollies, sprinkles, etc) in the middle and each child decorated their own cupcake. These individual activities worked well - minimal opportunity for arguments!

5. For the butterfly cake, I ordered a half a plain vanilla sponge slab cake from our local bakery. I then just made a paper template of the basic butterfly shape, cut it out and iced it. Much less fuss than trying to bake cakes and stick them together.

Hope these tips make your next kids party a bit less stressful! For more tips, see Rocks in my Dryer.