Hellobee Boards

Cheaper and less work sounds amazing

I would love to do option 1, but our party guests are mostly family and our nieces/nephews range from age 2-18 so a play gym type place wouldn't be suitable for all of them. It just makes more sense activity wise to have it at our house where everyone can just hang out. If all the kids were around the same age I would totally choose option 1.

I'm a #2 person. I don't care what anyone says, germs in places like that gross me out.

I'd go #2 also. I hate all the rules and restrictions with birthday party venues.

For my kids first few birthdays we just did them at our house and invited immediate family so small gatherings.

For my son for his 4th birthday we did the daycare friend invite thing and I definitely had it somewhere. I'm all about minimal set up and clean up.

But I'm not a good party planner and tend to get overwhelmed by it so I would rather spend money to do less work.

I love decorating and making my own party food so would have to go with number 2. I also prefer the more low-key approach of having it at home, but that's prob because I'm just not used to playcentres (LO is nearly 2 & isn't a fan).

@pinkcupcake: are there other venues you would consider? I've been looking at spaces my town rents out too! Those are much less restrictive.

Right now I'm much more into the creative DIY route, but I only have one LO and she's never had a party before. I imagine once we've done a few parties, the party-in-a-box route would be awesome. (Also I recall from my own childhood having an amazing time at some of those venue places.)

Depends on age!
For my sons first and second birthday, we did option 2. It's mostly just my family anyway! For his third birthday, we did option 1 (though we still brought our own food and minimal decorations- it was at an indoor gym/playground).

As he gets older I can see doing a mix of types of birthday parties depending on what he wants to do (like a pool party one year, or sleepover another year, etc.). It also depends if the party is going to be mostly family (like a lot of adults), or mostly little kids.

@youboots: I'm so excited for her party!!!!

@pinkcupcake: I've done a museum, a bouncy place, and chuck e cheese each once. Not even during flu season. And each of those times LO got sick. Seemed too much of a coincidence so we stay away from those places now. Since he's been in preschool he only caught a cold once. Totally get that he will get germs at school, but don't really want any extra ones. In comparison, school has been better to us.

@regberadaisy: Lol, sorry! See for friends I totally understand a place like that. We usually have huge family parties, so option two works better for our crowd.

We did DS's 5th birthday party at a venue that sounds like option 1. I was completely satisfied because all we had to do was bring a cake and show up. They did everything else! I probably would have spent almost as much on food/decor/entertainment/etc. in addition to time spent and cleanup.

While the idea of #1 sounds nice, we always do #2. Both my kids have food allergies, so being able to control all the food is really important to our family.

DS is young so I foresee doing house parties for a few more years (maybe 5?) till he wants to invite friends and actually do stuff. When that happens, we'll outsource. I'm all for no clean up and cheaper!

At that age I'd probably go option 1. When they're very young or older, I think it's easier to do things yourself but at 4 I think it would be more fun for the kids to have planned activities. My mom did small birthdays at home for me until I was about 6. Then we started alternating yearly between 1) a small at home party with 3-4 friends and family to 2) a big party at a venue where I invited the whole class. I thought that was a nice compromise.

@pinkcupcake: true! I always got stuff from Etsy and went overboard too but people are just so creative and crafty and do awesome work!

I'd go with the venue that takes care of everything/cheaper..

I have found that many of the kid places do allow you to bring in some sort of decor (minimal) or food, if you ask ahead of time. We did a kids gym party and brought in a lot of our own stuff, but were limited in terms of how much time we had for set up/take down. ..

I'm so over kids parties... And my girl doesn't do well with more than one friend over at our house, and honestly, neither do we. Also, there's no way I'm paying $500 for a birthday party at Tomee K Play (they make you pay for the adults even!!!)

We're opting for option 3: taking her and one of her friends to build a bear and then having cake and ice cream at our place.