First Birthday Party Tips

  Cookie and Peanut have turned ONE! It's hard to believe that it's been a year since they were born. We originally wanted to do a Winnie the Pooh Birthday party but the cake I wanted from Publix was discontinued. I am so sick of pink that I could puke so I wanted to avoid any stereotypical princess themes. Instead we chose the stereotypical twin theme of The Cat In The Hat with Thing One and Thing Two. My local bakery made the cakes and my husband chose the flavors. They were lemon cakes with strawberry filling and we called it a strawberry lemonade cake. Both girls have a weird obsession with lemons and love strawberries.

 

 The smash cakes ended up being huge! We plopped a cake in front of each girl and just let them go crazy. Peanut dug into her cake like a wild animal and Cookie apprehensively poked at the icing. In the end Peanut looked like a smurf and we had to spoon feed Cookie her cake since she didn't want to get her fingers sticky. Everyone pooped in bright green colors the next day and weeks later I'm still randomly finding blue icing stuck to furniture. This has caused a small ant problem too but it was worth it! 

Here are some things I learned from our first twin Birthday party:

1. Keep it simple, short, and small. We had a small party with only close family members and made hamburgers and hot dogs for everyone. I didn't make party favors to hand out (a trend everyone seems to do now), I didn't bake the cake myself, and I didn't decorate my entire house for the party. The less stress you put on yourself the more fun you'll have.
2.  Watch out for baby sensory overload. My girls were so wired by the end of the party that bedtime was rough. They were full of sugar and wallowing in new toys so it was hard to get them to unwind. It helps if you don't start taking toys out of their packages until the next day and try to hustle out guests before bath time so there's time to relax before it gets too late. 
3. Have a plan for opening gifts. The girls were too young and lacked the patience to open all the gifts they got so I was stuck with opening their gifts. I hate the practice of opening gifts in front of a crowd. It's awkward, boring, and I personally don't like the attention. If gift opening is your thing than have fun! I wish we could have discreetly piled the gifts in a corner to be opened the next day. The girls and I were tired after cake and I found opening all those gift bags exhausting. 
4. Set aside a special time for the baby to open mommy and daddy's gifts. Twin girls are usually showered with gifts. People love buying them cute pajamas and loud toys so our special gifts can be forgotten easily. I learned from Christmas to have a quiet moment alone with the girls to open their gifts from us. It's now a family tradition!
5. Celebrate! It's a party. I tend to get caught up in serving others, washing dishes, and cleaning up messes. In the past my hosted parties passed me by while I hustled around making everyone else happy. I've learned to sit my butt down and soak in the party with everyone else. Leave the dishes for tomorrow.
6. Cover the highchair you plan to use for the baby cake explosion in plastic! I totally didn't protect our high chairs and now they are stained blue. I guess I have a permanent reminder of how delicious that cake was.