A Time of Magic

Once you’ve gotten the birth out of the way, the first significant milestone for your child is their first birthday and so first birthday invitations mark what’s probably going to be an occasion that’s more memorable for you than it is for them.

That said, this is one of the first times that your child will be making their mark on the social calendar of life and so it’s worth putting that little bit more effort into the event. From the perspective of others that’s probably going to start with the invitation that they’ll receive which very much sets the scene for the event for them.

Naturally, you’ll want to continue the theme throughout the event as much as you can to make it a truly memorable time for all who participate in it but remember that it’s the first contact with the invitees that really sets the tone for the party.

Las Vegas, as always, is the land of excess in every way and the Stratosphere hotel takes that excess upwards with its hotel building towering above the Vegas skyline.

Although the hotel might be high the prices certainly aren’t. Typically for Las Vegas you get relatively low prices for extremely high quality hotel experiences. Yeah, I know, “hotel experiences” sounds very marketing-speak but in Vegas they take into account the whole deal rather than just having a decent mattress and a couple of freebies in the room so it’s very much the whole experience that ends up high quality rather than just some individual items as you’d find in other destinations.

Combined with the height of the building, the rides available are themed with altitude in mind so this probably isn’t the hotel to go to if you’re not too keen on heights.

The biggest problem these days with toys is probably that there are so many adverts on childrens’ programmes that the kids have just way too many suggestions for you.

However, the toys that they see on the adverts themselves aren’t the only thing altering their desires in terms of toys as many of the programmes themselves are end to end product placements and merchandising. Probably the worst of these at the moment is Hanna Montana which is probably the largest advertisement that the world has ever seen. I can side-step that particular one as I’ve just got boys but given the success that it’s seen I’m sure that there’s a similar effort planned for little boys too.

What you do need of course is a balance in the toys that you get. Thus you don’t want to be ending up buying only computer games for example. Ideally you should end up with a mix of indoor and outdoor toys, a mix of educational and purely fun ones, etc. Hard to achieve certainly but it’s worth keeping that idea of a balance in your mind when you’re out looking for them.