Don’t overthink it. We’ve gone on the record as saying that two-year old birthday parties are the ones you can just skip. A two-year old doesn’t know or care about such matters, so spare yourself the headaches of herding the kittens and take a few shortcuts when thinking about 2nd birthday parties in general.
My big caveat is when there are older siblings around because you don’t want them to think that the little one’s birthday doesn’t count.
For Sawyer’s second birthday, we invited his best girlfriend for an outing to the steam trains, a local attraction for little kids. By the time you factor in our other two sons, both sets of parents, and the guest of honor, it was starting to look like a real party.
Other ingredients to turn a playdate into a party:
- A dozen mini cupcakes with candle for wishing (as if). Sawyer licked his; I ate about three.
- A collection of real and homemade SF shirts (both our hometown sports teams and my baby’s initials) for us to wear in celebration of our guest of honor.
- Mandatory picture of everyone in party hats or with cupcakes and that’s enough to create a party memory.
- Two loops around the steam train for everyone!
And we were all home in time for naps.
Whitney found some fabulous and practical ideas for a second birthday party for those of you not buying into my scaled-down approach.
Tell me, what awesome or awful second birthday celebrations have you been to?
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