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Join us for Pizza at the Playground (and cupcakes to celebrate our course)!

For the second birthday we went full on kid mode. Only invited LOs friends and their parents (so none of our friends without kids). We also had it at Gymboree so I feel like the planned activity lets people know the party it not about food. They had the Gymboree class from 2-3 and then cupcakes in the party room from 3-3:30 and then we were done.

@deerylou: just saw an idea for pajamas and pancakes! How cute will that be?? A pancake bar and just have people show up in Jammie's! Coffee, OJ, apple juice and you're done.

I think mid afternoon is your best bet. Just be specific on the invitations--we had a lunch time party so I wrote specifically "join us for pizza and cupcakes" so people knew what to expect. If you said something about "join us for cake and ice cream and fun at the park" I think that clears it up.

As a parent, I get it that it doesn't always work for everyone to do a meal, I just like to know so I can plan to eat or not and avoid a cranky LO!

My daughter's next birthday is shortly after I'm due, so I'm already planning easy food. We'll have cut up veggies and fruit, hummus, pitas and olives, maybe some cheese and crackers and meats. And cupcakes. Maybe chips and salsa too. Generally tasty snacky mid afternoon food, but absolutely nothing cooked or fancy. If someone wants, they can bring a pasta salad or something, but that's even too much effort for my plans. It'll be at 3 in the afternoon, probably, so no expectation for a meal.

I think you've got to plan it outside of a meal time, like 3 pm. No one is going to expect lunch or dinner, so you can totally get away with lighter food. Morning is more challenging, though, in terms of a non meal time.

We did this and started at 3/3:30 so people wouldn't expect a full meal. We had a dessert bar and fruit skewers. The kids ran around our backyard and played, very low key!

@deerylou: We just went to a party at a fire station at 10am on a Sat and it was cake only after the activities. We also attended a 230 party that was pretty much cake only- just had bowls of snacks here and there. Both parties were short, 1.5 hours and were at times of day where people weren't expecting a full meal and it was fine:)

@deerylou: For my DD's 4th birthday we had the party from 1-3 and did pizza (delivered, so easy) and fresh fruit and then the cake. It was perfect!

We went to a party, 2 yr, that was at their house. They had a mini petting zoo come to the house. It was 10-11:30. I think it was around 1145/noon when we left. But they had some cheese, fruit, crackers, and mini muffins for everyone. Then cake. She put something on the invitation about cake before lunch, so we knew. I thought it was a great party. The kids had a blast. She still ate lunch when we got home and still took a nap.

They also had mimosa's for the adults, which was awesome.