6 weeks to party!

[LdyBluNH@aol]

my daughter's only had one party with kid friends over so i'm still new to this... tell me what you think of these ideas please?

i think my daughter is having a BYOB party (bring your own baby/bear) [she's really stuck between wanting babies and wanting the wiggles, australian band of kid songs -- she keeps asking for TWO parties!!!] she wants to play babydolls with her friends so my thoughts are:

guests will be one year to six year in age with parents here

bib shapes cut out of felt that kids can decorate for their baby/bear with glue, felt pieces, sparkles, buttons, etc.

feed the baby 'race' (not focused on winning per se) of a plastic spoon and ping pong ball that child has to run and feed to baby

a huge turtle pool filled with dd's old baby toys for the 'babies' and one yr olds to play with

she also has some outside toys - teeter gator; big slide; small slide; coupe car; small playhouse

bubble station;

party will prob. start 10 - 1030 for kids and feed lunch about noonish or so. no clue what to feed the adults. i really hate sandwich platters but cant think of much else; maybe amer. chop suey sort of thing in a steam dish to keep warm. we'll have about 14 adults with family

folks here mentioned doing the present as each guest arrives -- dont you find that you're always having to pull the birthday person away from what they're doing in order to do that???? i like the idea of something different for presents, but not certain that feels quite right. we'll have take homes for the kids, but they'll all be the same so i hesitate to hand them out/played with before leaving -- know what i mean??

again, i'd love ANY ideas/suggestions etc. about this -- and yes you can even tell me i'm daft

[bestjob]

It sounds like a lovely party. I'd be sure to have lunch on the early side, just because some kids will be hungry. Sandwiches for the adults would be fine. Most parents appreciate any food they don't have to prepare themselves.

I find that having the birthday child open presents as they and the guests arrive works very well. However, one thing that I have noticed is that in some places kids have very strong ideas about what should happen at parties and they get really disoriented if things are out of sync. What I'd suggest is finding out what is "normal" where you live and then deciding if you can live with it or not.