Help Me Decide First Birthday Party Theme!

[Kala]

LO is 8 months old and I want to start planning his first bday party. Right now I'm stuck between 2 themes: 1) Camo (toy bow and arrows, face painting) 2) County Fair (Caramel apples, popcorn, fair games, straw bales) There's so many cute ideas I can think of for both! What do you think?

And what have been some of the most memorable birthdays you've attended (or even put together yourself!) What games, party favors etc.

[raisingcropsandbabies]

I did a County Fair theme last year for my kids' combined birthday party and it was a blast! Great for all ages of children (since I combine all their birthdays, we invite tons of people). I bought brown paper bags at $Tree and stamps and let the boys stamp all over them. At the beginning of the party we handed those out to the kids with their names on them in permanent marker and sent them outside to do the games.

I put together the following games and prizes, outside (I drew the names on poster board and dh staked it in the ground)... bear with me because I can't quite remember what I called them:

Ring Toss. Prize: homemade playdough in ziploc baggies
Kick A Ball (into a goal) Prize: a stick of chalk
Fish Bowl Game Prize: Fish in a Bag Soap (super easy to make!)
Milk Bottle Knockdown Prize: Gold Medal
Coin Toss Bonanza Prize: the coins that were thrown in the jars
Can Throwdown Prize: a pencil
Bean Bag Toss Prize: Balloon with a paper suggesting balloon games (like balloon volleyball, etc)
Rubber Ducky Game: tootsie rolls

Then as a favor: I made them all a cd mix of the music I had playing outside (lots of fun oldies, dance music, etc) and for the Adults: a jar of strawberry rhubarb jam

My DH set up a hay bale and ladder playground and gave tractor wagon rides (perks of farming). A friend did face painting on the children.

Since it was a family party, I sent in the invite for men to bring their guns to go skeet shooting. So DH and the men took off to do that. And then I sent another little tab in the invite about a Blue Ribbon Baking Contest for the women. That took care of dessert too! I gave a prize to the woman who run the blue ribbon (it was a vote thing).

For food, I kept it simple because of all the other stuff! We did grilled hot dogs, carmel popcorn in cute popcorn bags that I made the day before (I found big tins at Lowe's to put them in), apples, and cotton candy in those containers (ick, but the kids loved them). Then desserts from the contest.

I had older women man a lot of the games (grandmas, great aunties, friends' moms), so there was someone heading a game at each station. If I didn't have them, I would have cut a lot of the games because it would have been chaotic.

[Kala]

^^ Omgosh that's awesome! We probably won't go quite that big but I am definetely stealing some of your ideas! Thank you so much!!!!