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For her first birthday, we hosted in our home and it was a nightmare. Our house is 1100 sq. ft. and not set up well for entertaining, plus it was too cold to go outside. For her second birthday, we had it outdoors at a playground. I think we will continue to do it, but next year we'll pay for the shelter!

We were between houses on LO's birthday this year, so we didn't do anything. This year, we will hopefully have it at our new house but we don't have family locally or a lot of friends so I'm not sure if we will even have anything.

We will probably rent a park or do the children's museum!

@nana87: Ugh I know. It is soooo expensive for kids parties!

Well, we technically have space, but I don't want to deal with set up and clean up, and we have a winter birthday, so we haven't had a kid party until now, at age 5 (it was offsite, at a party location).

In the past, we've done family parties and I've sent cupcakes to school on his birthday and popped into the class to read a story.

This year we are inviting daycare friends so we are going to have it at a park and rent a bounce house. That is the plan anyway. His birthday is at the end of March so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for good weather. If it rains I'll have a backup plan just in case, I just don't know what that is yet!

For birthdays 1-3 we just had them at our house and it was mostly our friends and some family.

@nana87: We've hosted at a gymnastics gym, an ice rink, a kids art studio and a ceramic studio.

Its always more $$ than doing it at home but less work and guaranteed all the kids have an awesome time!

1st birthday- I rented a big room at a bounce house that also had a game room for bigger kids. Most of her cousins and our friends' kids are much older so it was fun for the bigger kids too. We had to order food there so it was super expensive.

2nd birthday- 2 hours at Gymboree, we were able to bring food in. Only kids 5 and under were invited so it was much smaller than her first birthday but she loved it. Gymboree was her weekly hangout since she was 6 months old.

We rented a room (well 2 actually) at the community center for her first and then did a park for her 2nd.

We've always done a play gym/Legoland/bowling, etc.. (Well, first birthday was at a restaurant because it was all adults)

We have a tiny space. Plus we don't have guest parking and there's a street parking band November 1st through April 1st, DS's birthday is 12/17.
Also, we're in Boston, so no park or outdoor parties for our kid.

Poor kid- we just haven't had parties for her!

That's not entirely true- our families aren't local, so both summers we have traveled to visit my family (4 hours away) and they had a little family party for her there- not like decorations or anything but everyone got together and ate and had cake and she got presents. It's a treat enough to get everyone in one place. And on her actual bday usually my bil and his fiancée come over for dinner and cake.

Hopefully by 3 we will be in a house, maybe!

We had it at MIL's house

My MIL has a big house with lots of outside space, so we host there. It's a 30-40 minute drive from our city, so not everyone can make it. But it's worked out pretty well for us. My MIL is helpful, but not the type to take over the planning, which I really appreciate!

Birthdays age 1 & 2 at home. Age 3- preschool "party" + small celebration at home with just family. Age 4- just family at home again because we were moving. This year the little guy will have a preschool party and my older one presumably will still be in school so we'll see if we do a school party or something at a park.

for LO's 1st bday, we planned to do it in the park across the street from our building...but torrential thunderstorms were predicted that day so we moved it into our apartment. It was tight but fun. Next year we will do it at a playspace or at the firehouse in our neighborhood.

I kinda wish J didn't have a winter birthday for this reason haha. He is late February.
The first year we had a large party in the party room of a nature center (found it through the local parks/rec website). It was so perfect. We purchased the use of two rooms for a bigger party, but if we did it now, we could easily fit in just one room and it would be perfect and affordable. The parks/rec website has many options within 30 minutes of us that are very affordable.

His second birthday was family only in our apartment.
His third birthday we rented a space at one of those indoor playgrounds/gyms. It was totally chaotic because of course it was a Saturday afternoon and they don't (obviously) close the whole space for birthdays, and there were soooo many kids. It was overwhelming and I wouldn't do that with a toddler again (he was three).

This year we are in a new apartment that has a party room. It's still small though, but it would fit our family and his cousins so we might do that.