1St Birthday Party Outside!

I hosted a Halloween party for 30 last year. 10/30 was gorgeous. 10/31 was cold and rainy! buy a bunch of rain ponchos and towels and make it work.

water balloon fight.
water paint fight
puddle jumping
tug of war
water guns
puddle bowling

You could even give the towels as the party favor!
M.

So sorry you're in this situation! I agree with someone who mentioned that maybe you can arrange chairs for dancing, or something similar--you can do the chicken dance, hokey pokey, even rent a karaoke machine. And I like the idea of renting "sides" for the tent--if you can do that. Another think you might do is look on craigslist--there are lots of people and small companies who will do face painting and balloon animals for not too much money. That would take some time. Also, you could do a pinata, or a craft. But if you do a craft, keep it something fairly simple, like those little sand-filled bottles that the kids can do. Good luck!

do you have a bounce house like Jumpin Jack's or Kangaroo Zoo in your area?

I feel ya....I'm having a party this Saturday at a park and its supposed to rain. I've also had one at a park with downpour rain. This time I have an indoor backup plan...so if its too bad that's what I'll be doing.

With the other one, I did not have a backup and followed through. This is what I found out, at least in my case, not as many people show up. But as far as entertaining the kids, I took quite a few board games, I think I even purchased some. I also brought a lot of play dough. Then I also had coloring available. For the family that did come this worked out well. Even the adults were playing play dough.

Good luck to you, I pretty much always plan an outdoor party. This might be my second unlucky year. The rainy one will always be remembered. At the end we were all wet...and I made sure to take a family picture for the memories.

I'm so sorry - this is the problem with planning big parties for small children! You're really stuck financially and socially. If it rains, people just aren't going to come, frankly. 66 and breezy is okay - they can wear sweatshirts. But rainy? Three hours? 60 guests? Just what was your husband thinking? How much work was he planning to do to keep everyone occupied and entertained? Or is it all falling to you??

I'm not sure how you can keep twin toddlers happy for 3 hours with all that stimulation anyway! All I can think of is that you can spend a lot more money and go to a tent rental place to rent "sides" for the pavilion to break the wind and rain. You'll have to enlist the other adults in teams to handle set-up, clean-up (progressively - since the wind will blow things), figure out some sort of craft to do under the pavilion, etc. If there are tables, great. If they can be moved and you can do some sort of dancing or gross motor activity in the center to keep the kids occupied and moving against the cold, that might work. You said there is a big age range so I'm not sure what all you can do, but playing music like "YMCA" and having the kids act it out might cover different ages. You could do more old-fashioned things like the 'hokey-pokey' where everyone gets silly but all ages can do it and be laughing.

You need to enlist the help of your best friends/relatives, sit down today for a big discussion of how to make this work with your husband as an integral member and organizer, and get them to volunteer for different tasks. Many hands make light work - you absolutely cannot manage this alone, and you cannot assume that there will be any one activity that is appropriate for all these ages. Break it down into groups and hope for the best. Next year, scale back.

and that is why I do not have outdoor parties. 66 isn't too bad maybe ask them to bring their rain gear so they can go jump and play in the rain towards the end of the party. I would do any food, cake and presents first since the weather is going to be kind of yucky. If the party doesn't last 3 hrs (thats kind of long for a 1st birthday anyways) that's okay.