Birthday party for 2 year old

[Eulalia]

My son is 2 next Thursday and at the following weekend I am having a kids birthday party. I don’t have a lot of money so plan to do all the cooking and preparations myself. Obviously this means doing a lot of the work ahead of the day.

I thought I might make up some spreads for sandwiches and wondered if I could freeze egg mayonnaise? Also can you defrost pastry, make sausage rolls and then freeze the pastry again once it is cooked?

If the weather was nice I am considering a BBQ but feel this may be too much work and I am unsure if a BBQ is safe with 2 year olds running around. Anyone tried this? Perhaps I could put the BBQ onto a table for safety?

I am considering doing my own party bags too (oh god I only have a week left!) with sandwich bags and sweeties inside with a little homemade thank you note. Is this enough? There seems to be so much pressure these days to have everything perfect and following a Winnie the Pooh theme or whatever.

Any thoughts and/or suggestions would be welcome.

[Tigermoth]

Eulalia, I'm thinking of parties too for younger son. Here's some ideas, culled from my experiences the first time round.

I hate cooking so, for me at least the aim is to do no food preparation whatsoever during the party apart from pouring drinks. So all food is laid out in advance and covered.

No cooking also because to enjoy myself and relax I need to give my concentration 100% to the the birthday boy and the guests. Earlier postings here have recommended organising other adult helpers. Definitely agree! And to keep things as simple as possible, I would personally rule out having a barbeque. I know my carnivorous son would be extremely attracted to anything smelling of sizzling sausages. The constant shooing away form the hot bits would be too stressful for me.

Crisps: not too many at a time, if you have them. Keep topping up supplies and put them in lots of small bowls so no one child can hog the crisps.

As others have said here, pass the parcel ( made of newspaper) is just about playable with 2 year olds. Sweets as presents between the layors.

Any other games I've tried have failed. Musical statues may be OK, though. No harm in having a go. Also avoid prizes - the losers are liable to have tantrums.

I personally wouldn't open presents until later. I suppose it all depends how good your guests are at sharing. There's bound to be one favourite toy that everyone wants.

Activities you could think of doing are: A lucky dip - burying little parcels of sweets or something in the sandpit. If I remember you said on another board that you were buying one?

Also you could use the sandpit for a small car play area. My son loves small cars, I take a bag of them everywhere. Gets lots and lots so everyone can join in. Borrow from friends etc. or buy them secondhand from boot sales if you have time. Personally I think battered metal cars look much more authentic and interesting than shiny new ones.

If you can procure an old parachute, then your guests can have fun crawling under it. Lots of games of hide and seek.

Or make a den for them indoors or outdoors.

For a very cheap party theme, if you have a paddling pool, make little paper boats and your guests can play sailors. Then add a paper boat to every good bye bag at the end of the party. And still nautical, get a jelly, add some soft fish-shaped jelly sweets and angellica (seaweed) and put them in to make a jelly rockpool.

Can't think of anything more. Just lots of kitchen wipes and bin bags and loo roll...

Good luck

[Bells1]

Not sure about freezing egg mayonnaise Eulalia - I personally would be a bit wary. There is no problem with freezing already frozen patsry once it has been cooked though. My homemade sausage rolls went down a storm last (one guest said to me "I didn't know you could make these at home"!!!!). We are having a BBQ for my son's 2nd although ours is a giant Aussie "Beefmaster" (a wedding present) and so frankly would be unlikely to be a danger. I find BBQ's a great way to entertain and it means you can repay adult hospitality at the same time. On the food front, I tend to do a lot of Greek or North African things such as chicken/pork koftas which make the meat go a long way and make the food a bit more interesting. On party bags, last year we gave each child a small book (bought in bulk at a heavy discount) and I daresay we will do something similar this year. I really wouldn't worry too much about these at all... I'm sure a balloon each with a note attached would keep them happy.

[Suew]

I'd be wary of the egg mayo freezing too.

For my daughter's third I did a selection of sarnies - cheese, ham, marmite - crisps, crudites - peppers, carrot sticks, cucumber slices. We had an entertainer but I was amazed - she just put a few of everything on each child's plate and they either ate it or not, then she went round and topped up. The prep took me about an hour in the morning - sarnies left in the fridge until just before the party and crisps still in their bags put on the table in bowls and opened in the nick of time.

My daughter went to a party a few weeks ago and as thank yous the mum took lots of piccies, got a double set and put a note on the back - Thank you for coming to my party love ..... and the date - which I thought was lovely as it was a really nice picture of DD having fun with her friends and went straight into our Australia scrapbook/photo album. She gave them out at Kinder within a couple of days of the party.

The treasure bags here have been a few jelly sweets and maybe a fun-size choc bar in a plastic bag. The kids really don't mind and I'm glad of no more plastic trash! But I also agree with Bells - if you can afford the heavily discounted books, they are a great idea for party bags and were v successful for both DD's 3rd and 4th birthday.

[Carriel]

Time's short, so I can't say much except don't be bullied into providing lavish party bags especially at this young age. I agree a balloon, or a tub of bubbles and a piece of b'day cake is more than adequate. The worst party bags are those filled with choc goodies. My daughter - already full of blue icing from a bob the builder b'day cake then ate the entire contents of a choc filled party bag on the way home, and promptly threw up all over her dad in his posh work suit - actually v funny but not recommended. Get help, keep it simple and don't worry too much. Oh and if poss have a quite room for later on when folks are getting tired/hyper - with a video if you have one - good for older kids getting tired of toddlers' games

[Eulalia]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, particularly your long one Tigermoth. Some good ideas here. Not got the sandpit yet as funds are getting short but hope to get it next week. Otherwise I am going to borrow a few big things from the toy library, including some videos just in case it rains.

Today I did some thank you notes - I have a digital camera so I inserted a photo of my son into a Publisher File with a speech bubble coming out if his mouth with "thank you for coming to my party" and then I shall simply insert the child's name. It looks great and it is totally unique.

I make homemade truffles for parties which always goes down well and they can be frozen in advance. As for cake well I was thinking of just doing fairy cakes. I was going to make one for him on the day but it won't be big enough to go round everyone.

I'll probably just do a big pot of chilli or something for the adults and lots of wine (particularly for me!) The last party I did went down really well so I am not going to get stressed about it that's for sure.

Thanks again - just hope the weather is better than it has been this week.

[Tusky]

for my son's party I put small amounts of food (buttered bridge rolls,a bag of hula hoops,some cocktail sausages,carrot sticks)on a individual paper plates (which could be decorated if plain by writing the child's name on their plate),a carton of orange or apple juice and then topping them up after they'd eaten (actually they don't eat much at all !) with some home made cakes,mini box of raisins and some tiny biscuits like iced gems (bit of nostalgia there)- then you don't have huge excesses of food and less mess ! Party bags were plain paper,again decorated by hand with their names on,with a balloon,some sweeties and 1 or 2 small toys- bubbles,little purses,nice pencils etc...

[Janh]

eulalia, if you plan to put balloons into your party bags, it's a nice idea to blow them up first and write each child's name on with a thick permanent marker. (then let them down again, obviously!) (or keep them blown up and tie them to the bags...)

one year i bought cheap plastic beakers instead of paper cups and wrote their names on those too, and sent them home with them.

i agree about keeping the bags small and simple, too - i love carriel's anecdote about the suit!

[Eulalia]

I like the idea of personalising paper plates and balloons - I will use that one for sure. Decided to do some tray bakes which are quick and easy to cut into slices - they are now in the freezer. Got some homegrown strawberries today so will do something with them too.

Now I just want some sunshine and warm weather pleeeeease!

[Donna247]

my daughter is 2 just after xmas and i want to do u a party,what fings do i do and how long after xmas do i do the party its on the 27/dec

[Fidge]

Donna, we had a party on new years eve afternoon last year which went well. It was a house warming but nearly all ours friends have kids the same age as dd so it was basically like a kids party. I didn't think many people would come but actually its quite a good time as people are over xmas and if you've got young kids you're not likely to be going out on new years eve night and getting completely smashed. Its my dd's 2nd birthday on Saturday so I will putting some of the good ideas here into practice.