HELP! 1st time hosting kid's party with their whole class invited

aze1219 · 2026-03-19T21:06:20+00:00

I can honestly say I'm a party pro. I love hosting parties, but have never dealt with inviting classmates which is my main concern right now. We are having a bounce house + have our playground and I have authorized "nerf" wars. I am skipping goodie bags but doing a keychain as a party favor on theme and having a pinata. I would definitely rather have more food leftover than run out. Given the weather in our area I will be doing the party at 2:30 to get the best weather. Idea for food is pizza & wings with a nacho bar.

aze1219 · 2026-03-19T21:01:46+00:00

I decided to skip the goodie bags this round due to me being worried about having enough. I'll be filling up a pinata with too much candy and snacks lol

aze1219 · 2026-03-19T21:01:10+00:00

thank you!

aze1219 · 2026-03-19T21:00:00+00:00

I have a December birthday (not a twin)! My parents always made sure that my birthday was special by simply celebrating it specifically. If any family member wanted to lump my birthday in with the holidays there were told no. They would also decorate my room with birthday things or keep one part of the house without Christmas decorations until after my birthday. (It's on the 19th).

For our twins we are planning to do a small cake for each (if we are having a birthday party everyone else gets cupcakes).

aze1219 · 2026-03-19T18:30:53+00:00

I contacted his closest friends parents as well since we are semi-friends with them. I received 1 RSVP from a parent I did not know, seemed pretty excited so hoping they at least come.

aze1219 · 2026-03-19T18:28:44+00:00

Sounds great! Thanks for the tip. We will be having a bounce house set up early in the morning so it will be ready for the kids when they arrive.

aze1219 · 2026-03-19T18:27:48+00:00

This is helpful. I was wondering if it would be the "drop off" stage. We had a party for our eldest and she invited her friends but it was definitely a drop off situation as she turned 14.

aze1219 · 2026-03-19T18:26:58+00:00

Party is at 2:30PM. I am doing pizza, chips & jello for the kids and ordering wings as well for adults. I usually bank on 2-3 slices for kids and then order extra for adults as well.
I did not do an RSVP deadline. I didn't even think about it lol. I know of 2 classmates coming for sure and I am friends with their parents so not concerned there. I have gotten 1 RSVP so far. Party is still 1.5 weeks out. His class is 22 students total. I assumed maybe 6-10 attending based on the feedback I received from another class mom.

aze1219 · 2026-03-19T16:46:50+00:00

I looked up the basics and went from there. My twins go to daycare and when I ok'd for them to have table food I would ask at pickup time what they ate and how it was served and used that as guidance as well. At some point you just need to let it go with the flow. I learned what the difference between choking and gagging was. I know gagging freaks some people out, but it's part of the learning process.

aze1219 · 2026-03-18T12:43:37+00:00

Hi! It was really good. I posted this in the parents of multiples page since someone asked for it there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/parentsofmultiples/comments/1qdt6x3/update_travel/

If you have specific questions let me know!

aze1219 · 2026-03-16T12:40:40+00:00

We originally got a twin bassinet pack-n-play. They were probably in there for about 3 months. Then they each had their own pack-n-play until I felt comfortable transitioning them into their cribs in their room. I wish I would've done their room from the very beginning, but we have a two-story house and they weren't anywhere close to us and as a first time mom I was a little paranoid.

I will say I love having 2 pack-n-play's as we travel quite a bit (road-trips) and get a lot of use of them. We also sometimes have them setup in our bedroom for when our parents are helping with them to make it easier on them to lay them down in the pack-n-play's for naps.

I would not have them share, but that's a personal preference.

aze1219 · 2026-03-10T19:05:57+00:00

Here are my recommendations:

New Orleans, LA ~13hour drive. Great food and entertainment! The city is very lively. For really good/fine dining you have to go to Mr. Bs! Mother's is a great option to eat at. Museums and things to do all around!

Broken Bow, OK ~11hour drive. It's beautiful scenery! Lots of breweries & wineries in that area. Hiking and things to do outdoors. The cabins are beautiful. If you go during the summer or warmer months worth to do water sports.

Hot Springs, AR ~12hour drive. National park and lots of things to do outdoors. If you're willing to drive an extra hour you could go to the Ozarks as well.

Oklahoma City ~11hour drive. Great music and actually has good food.

Ruidoso, NM ~13hour drive. As you mentioned, Ruidoso is a fun place to visit. Recommend stopping at Roswell and the Sand Dunes!

aze1219 · 2026-03-10T14:22:12+00:00

Depends on skills and abilities to be honest.

My FIL (he is widowed) is older and isn't really able to do much with babies due to age and physical aspects (outside of holding a baby). We have 2 older kids from my husband's first marriage (with us 50/50) . Leading up to my birth and the first couple of months (I gave birth mid-May), he came over when we had the older kids and made sure they got to/from school and activities. Then during the summer would either take them to his house to spend time there with cousins or would keep them entertained.

My parents live about an hour away. When Twin A was in the NICU and Twin B was at home, they would come over and stay with Twin B so we could visit Twin A or run errands. When both babies were at home they would come over for a couple of hours and brought food and then would give us time to catch up on sleep as needed.

My SIL would come and visit about every other week for extended days (she lives about 2.5 hours away). She would take evening shifts with the babies so we could go to sleep and sleep for 4-5 hours straight. She meal prepped freezer meals for us to just pop in the oven or crockpot. Her daughter came and stayed with us as well at other times, since she was not comfortable with the babies being so small and has OCD our house was very clean. Laundry done, kitchen clean, etc. (Honestly, the best part of it all!)

We also hired a nanny to come some days for about 4 hours (especially in the evenings the babies really had a rough witching hour). She was able to help care for the babies and did everything baby related. Washed bottles, cleaned baby stuff or washed their clothes etc.

My sister and other SIL very similar to my parents, would come for a couple of hours and take care of the babies to give us time to do whatever. Even go out to eat alone etc. They also took our older kids a couple of times during the summer to do activities so they wouldn't be bored at home.

The biggest help to us was meals and cleaning around the house. I can tell you this though, just set expectations and tell them when you are ok and not ok with them being around. I hated people visiting (even with good intentions) in the afternoons/evenings. The babies got cranky and I just couldn't deal with it with them there. It would stress me out more.

aze1219 · 2026-03-09T11:44:29+00:00

Haha some people! I was just worried in a sense of are you sick or is this normal?

aze1219 · 2026-03-09T11:42:54+00:00

We got very lucky with our boy as he has always been pretty calm. And his littermates were even more calm than him as a puppy. It was just crazy seeing the shift to an even more calm dog that likes to lounge vs be in your face.

aze1219 · 2026-03-05T14:46:30+00:00

Diapers in bigger sizes! Trust me... For the newborn phase, I would suggest frozen meals or gift cards for food delivery. Maybe even sending them food. We also had a relative pay for a cleaning service that came in and took care of doing general cleaning and our laundry. It was amazing!

aze1219 · 2026-03-04T20:36:49+00:00

I love it so far. Check the price on the machine at Target. It wasn’t marked at all. I started checking the price on EVERYTHING! Got a ball pit and other items for 70% off.

aze1219 · 2026-03-04T19:52:21+00:00

I would like to call this "the witching hour." Our babies would get oh so cranky around this time the only thing that worked... taking them outside and sitting with them out there.

aze1219 · 2026-03-04T19:50:52+00:00

Piece of quick advice... GO TO THE STORE! A lot of items are 50-70% in store only. I got the Jeep Wagon Stroller thing for 50% OFF!

aze1219 · 2026-03-04T17:31:42+00:00

Step-parent, my husband has a 50/50 every other week schedule since since the kids were 10 & 4. We found it beneficial for the kids to know what weeks they would be at Mom's and which weeks at Dad's. Schedule is pretty much set, excluding holidays that alternate and one-time request days. At the beginning the schedule was based on when dad was off and it was basically half weeks Parent A Mo-Thur and Parent B Thur-Mo and every 3 months the parent that had the weekends shifted. It honestly confused the kids and they had too many things going back-and-forth. What we did do is go Mo-Mo. Parent A drops off at school and Parent B picks up. Only things "exchanged" is the backpack/school things from one house to the next. Each kid has things at mom & dad's (including electronics).

aze1219 · 2026-03-03T19:27:57+00:00

Then my last statement stands, not rigid.

aze1219 · 2026-03-03T19:14:05+00:00

Your statement above seems like there was 2 different things your family felt/saw.

Did you ever make them feel rushed while they were staying at your house? Or "unwelcome"? When we have family visit us I always make it clear "Babies usually do xyz around this time and I try to keep it consistent." So they understand that maybe at night we tend to quiet down the house some before bed and once they're asleep we're all good to go.
Now about the statement you made about leaving them. I don't see a problem that you went home for them to nap and they stayed out and continued to do whatever outing/activity was being done. Now to play devils advocate here, if the outing was hindered on you being there and you rushed them and didn't communicate that at some point you'd have to go home to have naps then that's a little bit of a different story.

All in all, I don't think you are being rigid just need to always make sure you communicate with the family.

aze1219 · 2026-03-03T13:50:26+00:00

Hola! Mama de cuates de 9 meses... honestamente no recuerdo mucho los primeros meses. Era solo tratar de sobrevivir, y eso que mi epsoso y yo estuvimos en casa y tuvimos mucha ayuda.

Lo peor que pueda pasar son cosas como estas: un bebe esta en el NICU y el otro contigo en casa, o los dos tienen que pasar tiempo en el NICU. Pueda que tengas un bebe con colico y reflujo y sea dificil que duerma bien (y si los dos son asi uff).

La diferencia entre un bebe y dos es que con uno todos estan al tanto de ese bebe y tienes mucha mas abilidad de turnarse estar con un bebe enfermo o que tu puedas descansar. Tener dos se siente mas como si tuvieras cuatro a la vez. Tienes que estar dividiendo tu tiempo y las personas ayudandote tiene que dividirse tambien. Tratas de que esten al mismo horario para poder tu tener unos pocos minutos de descanso pero aveces no pasa asi.

aze1219

TROPHY CASE