[Momof4Boyz]

Jay got his very first birthday invite from a school friend, he's pretty excited even though it's a "girl" lol! Which got me to thinking his birthday is coming up soon (April 8th). Joe's birthday is in July so generally they do a "summer birthday" celebration the last week of school and we've just invited the kids we know. Since Jay's falls in April though, he could have a big party and invite his class... my husband kind of did a gulp when I said that lol. But I figure if we did invite the whole class (which is only 19 kids) I highly doubt ALL of them would come. Even if they did all come it's nothing a sheet cake and a bunch of pizza couldn't handle. I figured we would do it at the park and have a bounce house set up for it.

Thoughts? Have you ever invited the ENTIRE class? If so, did they all show?

[Jaidynsmum]

Haven't with Jaidyn yet (but will for her birthday this year), have done with the older three and I'd say most, if not all that get invited turn up.
Jaidyn has been to 8 parties since starting school in August and all her classmates have been at them.

[mamma_anna]

Congrats to Jay for his first invite. How exciting for him.

I throw large parties all the time but they're almost always family gatherings where everyone pitches in. I honeslty can't imagine throwing a birthday party with that many kids!

The rule at the girls school is birthday invitations have to be mailed not handed out at school no matter who you're going to invite. This works well for us. My kids generally get along with everyone but they're not necessarily close friends with all their classmates and may not want everyone at their party. Plus they have friends from activities outside of school so if we invited all their classmates and all their other friends we'd be looking at 4 parties a year with at least 50 kids each! No way! We just can't afford that.
We let our girls invite up to 10 of their closest friends (it usually ends up being less than that) and we try to keep things simple. They're spoiled enough as it is by all of our extended family.

In your situation though, if you're up for a big party and if he wants all his classmates there then yes, absolutely order pizza, get a sheet cake and have it at a park! It sounds like it would be fun.

[Momof4Boyz]

I wish we could just mail invites but the school is like locked-down with privacy so they will not give out addresses! I'd much rather just invite 5-6 kids he really likes but since it's all or nothing... that's kind of what I have to do. Although now we're talking about going to Disney for his birthday instead, which he won't object to at all lol.

[mamma_anna]

How odd that you can't get adresses for his classmates. We get a school directory every year. Families don't have to put all their information in but most do.

I'd vote for disney myself. I'm sure he'll have a wonderful birthday whatever you decide to do.

[Mom2Brendan]

Brendan birthday falls in August so no inviting kids from his class for his b-day.

Did try to have a big sleepover with kids from Kids like was hoping for a five kids but only one showed but he wasn't ready to sleepover and with Brendan other classmate at a different time slept over-he drove me crazy.

[Mod-krislati]

I've invited the whole class before. Only 10 of the 23 kids showed up, it was at the pumpkin patch. some parents just don't like the party things, I think you would be safe saying not everyone will show.

[SpazTaz]

Yep, we invited 39 kids a couple of years ago. I had it in our park and had a football, soccer ball, and baseball with a couple of bats out there and they just played on the playground equipment, tag, with the balls, etc. I got 5 pizzas for $5 each at Little Cesars, did the Hugs juices from Walmart (2 cases), with a case of water from Costco, and I did 1/4 of a sheet cake. I had probably 25 kids that showed up, I had leftover pizza, drinks, and cake. I did the entire party for 25 kids and spent around $75 with cake, pizza, etc. It worked out great!!