2nd year - Outdoor Birthday Party

Last weekend, we celebrated my daughter's 2nd year birthday. It did not take a lot of debating for me and my husband to decide on the venue. We had long decided that we would host and outdoor party for our daughter. As most parents know, the child's first year birthday party is for the parent's satisfaction / happiness ... then on, it will be decided based on child's interest. We knew that our daughter would love an outdoor party but what we didn't know was that a beautiful, well landscaped kid's park was in close vicinity to our house. We had seen the soccer ground everytime we drove by the park.. what we didn't know was that a quite little play area was tucked inside as well. That was until little over 2 months ago. We were so glad to have found a play area with swings / slides, sand box etc in such close quarters ... ever since we have tried to take her to the park atleast 3 times a week. It has been her favourite play area since. So, it was not a surprise that we decided to host her birthday in the park. Now there are so many things to do when you decide to host a party .... prepare a guest list, send invites to the guest, decide on the time, food, goodie bags, cake, balloons etc. The problem was we decided to host the party a little too late (we weren't sure we could host one because of prior commitments) ... we just had 6 days to plan, decide and execute. Narrowing the guest list is always tricky ... so was it in this case. After much deliberation, we decided to invite our daughter's day care pals and some of our close friends / relatives. I took the initiative and invited our guests ... thankfully, most of them did not have prior commitments and readily agreed to come. Not wanting to take a chance, I also called up the county park dept and ensure that "Our chosen Venue" was a public park and did not need any reservations. We decided to gift the kids with pail / showel / seeve kit which toddlers love during the summer. My sister volunteered to make cookie and toffee bags ... some puzzles, candies and lollypop and ... lo ... the goddie bags were ready. We ordered a Strawberry Dora cake ... dora being one of my daughter's admired characters. We were to have a snack party. The weather these days has been so hot that the menu had to include loads of fruits and liquids. My sister, BIL, hubby and me ... all of us pitched in prepared the food ourselves. We could have ordered the food to save on the efforts ... but I insisted on cooking, as I really wanted to do something for my little one and it meant a lot to me. The party day arrived ... we franticly worked to get all things right and arrived at the park just on time. The guests started coming slowly. My daughter's excitement on seeing her friends was worth a million dollars. She individually welcomed all her friends ... led them to the play area and ensure they were comfortable. Its surprising how the kids learn to be good hosts :) There were quite a few kids and all of them were busy in their own world ... and for a change, parents were happy to just watch them from a distance and have a good time among themselves. Not one kid wanted parents' involvement ... all of them were just too busy in their world to disturb their parents. Soon they were hungry ... it was just a perfect time to cut the cake. The dora cake turned out to be a perfect choice ... most kids loved Dora and of course the cake. (one thing I am sure is Dora and Barney have huge fan following among my daughter's friends). The kids and adults enjoyed the food alike. It was again play time for the kids. The evening had gotten a lot cooler by now and I decided to conduct an interesting game for the kids. The winnders were beaming with pride when they got their prizes !! Soon it was time to depart for most of the guests. The goodie bags were distributed to the kids ... and they were only too happy to open its contents. The first thing that caught their attention was the lollypop. As the kids reluctantly went back home with their parents licking the lollypops, one thing we knew was that the birthday party was a success and any future party that we would host for the kids would be in parks :)