1st birthday party ideas

[bourbonbiccy]

So I'm looking for little ideas for my DS 1st birthday party. We are only having a bbq in the garden for family and close fiends, but was looking for any unique ideas that could just add a nice touch to the day. I sadly lost my mum this year and she was my party planner and had said she wanted to "do the day properly" but I'm not very imaginative, so at a bit of a loss

I know people will say he won't know and he won't remember but I would still like some ideas.

Can't really help with unique but at my son's 1st birthday we did an outdoor ball pit using a paddling pool and hundreds of balls (you can add a slide into it if you have one) and lots of touchable bubbles (the ones they can hold and don't break when they hit a hard surface), good fun for very little kids.

Well it will be unique as it's you and your child but:

We had DS 1st birthday today. Only Family in garden/ BBQ but he was really overwhelmed for a lot of the time so was pretty clingy to me and given he had a 2 hour nap at lunchtime too....

The things that made it special for us was who was there, not any gimmicks