What is a baby announcement party?

Anonymous wrote:Don't do it on the same weekend.

Not really an option if it's to be done at all due to the distance.

Anonymous wrote:To boil your post down more, to make sure I understand -- your and wife's families are each coming to town at the same time. Both families want to celebrate a birthday over the time that they are visiting. Instead of being adults and sharing a celebration, they/you are proposing that one side or another drive multiple hours to have cake out of sight of the other family.

That's crazy. Get a cake (two if you absolutely must) and sing happy birthday to both. In the same room.

OP here. Yeah, that's basically it although the pressure is coming from my sister, not MIL/FIL. Also, not for nothing, but the catalyst for the visit is the baby announcement party.

I like the idea of having the cake at the restaurant. That's an excellent idea and would solve all of our problems.

Personally, I'm with you guys on adult bdays and don't care about mine. Dinner out with DW and a hug/kiss and a happy birthday do it for me. Sis isn't used to sharing because my parents are out of state as are her husband's so they never have to deal with splitting time for holidays so it's easy for everything to be about her.

Yeah, tell the birthday princess to calm the f down and act like an adult. I'm assuming she is turning 26, not 16.

If you really need to cater to her (though I wouldn't) talk to your inlaws and ask if it's ok to only sing to your sister when you have cake and ice cream in the evening because she is a crazy person. Assuming they are reasonable adults, they will roll their eyes with you and agree to just celebrate MIL's birthday while they are out and not "steal" your sister's birthday.

Your sister is being a big bag of snot. If she really can't handle the idea of being around anyone else being celebrated at all on her day, she should stay home. This isn't a situation where "everyone" needs to be "a little more reasonable" - your sister needs to be the tiniest bit reasonable and grown up about it and knock the crap off.

This is crazy town. You sister is an adult? Why on earth would adults drive all over the state to eat birthday cake?

Don't do it on the same weekend.

To boil your post down more, to make sure I understand -- your and wife's families are each coming to town at the same time. Both families want to celebrate a birthday over the time that they are visiting. Instead of being adults and sharing a celebration, they/you are proposing that one side or another drive multiple hours to have cake out of sight of the other family.

That's crazy. Get a cake (two if you absolutely must) and sing happy birthday to both. In the same room.

Ha! Tell sister to grow up and not be one of those people whose birthday is all about them. But seriously - just do cake at the restaurant - most will let you bring one in if it is for a special occasion or will make you something.

lol how old is your sister? is it a milestone birthday?

Holy moses. These are adults birthdays, right? Your sister needs to chill out.

You need to have one party with one cake for both people. THE END.

Can 2 adults really not handle sharing their birthdays?

Different days or times. Do brunch for one and dinner for another. Trying to split up seems weird to me but I don't know your family dynamics.

SIL is a PITA. Do nothing.

There's a lot of moving parts here so I'm going to try to keep it simple and objective so here goes:

Sister is vising for a few days in connection with a baby announcement party thing DW wants to do. That's the main purpose of the visit but her bday also falls during the visiting time. Sister lives out west and I don't see her very often.

MIL also has a bday this month (but not exactly on one of the days these visits will fall under) and FIL wants to do something for her while all of her side of the family is together. BIL and SIL are also coming (approximately 8 hour drive each in opposite directions...one from the north, one from the south) so while DW sees her family more often than I see my sister she only sees them a few times a year while I see sister once every two or three years. MIL/FIL live about 3 hours away and my parents live about 1.5 hours away so we're somewhat scattered.

Everyone will be at our house on Sat/Sun so I was planning on doing something with my sister and my parents for her bday while DW entertains her family. I think we're all in agreement on that front. Something like I would go out to eat with my side of the family and DW would go out to dinner for her mom's bday. I guess people want to do cake after dinner and my sister doesn't like the idea of sharing her bday with MIL for you know...reasons.

Here are the options as I see them (and I welcome other possibilities):
1. My family does dinner somewhere and goes to my parents' house for cake. Sister doesn't like this option because she doesn't want to spend three hours in the car.
2. DW and her family drive to MIL's house and go out to dinner down there. This isn't really a great option because her guests that are driving 8 hours to our house probably won't be thrilled about another 6 hour round trip in the car.
3. A hybrid version of #1 and #2 would be that everyone could do dessert out someplace. I guess at a restaurant...I'm sure you can order a cake with a candle or whatever if you pay them.
4. Our house is big enough that we could do separate cakes - one family in the dining room and the other in the kitchen. I don't think sister likes this option either.
5. A variance on #4 but we could stagger the times we use the house for cake. (i.e. I take my family out at 4:30 and do cake around 6 and DW takes her family out for dinner at 6 and does cake later in the evening or vice versa).

Honestly, I don't really care which of these options we do or if there's another option out there I'm happy to do that too, I'm flexible. I understand where FIL is coming from as their family only gets together a few times a year (Easter, Xmas, Thanksgiving, that kinda thing) so to have everyone drive out here in the next month or two probably won't happen since it's such a long drive.

I haven't yet talked through each option with my sister but her initial reaction was that she wasn't going to come out if she has to share her bday...so I need to come up with something that's somewhat palatable for her. This shouldn't be that hard, I think if everyone is a little more reasonable we can work something out. Thoughts/ideas?