Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies

Birthday Party!

May 21, 2013 — 11:19 pm

Gosh. My head hurts.

I’ve been taking photos rather than writing. My bad. But it takes all my free time in the evenings to edit my pics. I’ve recently decided to start using Flickr again. So if I have no words at least I have that! Here’s my photostream. I’m only posting the best ones, not flooding it all. We’ll see. I’ve really been practicing and improving (I think). It’s fun… and frustrating.

Then of course there was birthday party planning. The girls’ joint party was on Sunday! We had 9 kids and 17 adults, which would not have been nearly as big a deal if it had been an outdoor bbq as planned. Unfortunately it decided to rain and then thunder and storm that day and we all ended up inside our very small house. I had decorations and posters to put up, tables and chairs, food… and a very messy house. I mean, I had cleaned the bathroom and kitchen a presentable amount, but the house was in no way, shape or form ready to have people milling about in all corners. 3 hours before the party was to start was when I realized everything would have to move inside and flipped my shit just a little bit. (Den will say it was more than a little bit. Ignore him. He definitely does not have any text messages to prove otherwise. Nope.) We hastily stuffed all the clutter into our bedroom – which was exceedingly scary when you see it all in one mountainous pile like that – vacuumed, moved furniture, tossed the cats into the basement. But it DID turn out well and I guess that’s all that really matters. I did have a headache, though.

This year, unlike the previous two years, I actually picked a theme: the Lorax! I made tissue paper truffula trees, a life-size paper Lorax, and everything was pink, orange and yellow. I think it was pretty fabulous. Kate seemed quite thrilled, which of course is supposed to be the point. (It’s not really… not when they are 1 and 3. You know it’s for me!)

One of the more brilliant ideas was using a small, cheap kids pool as a ball pit. I did a very small one on Kate’s first birthday party (outside!) which went over well with the little ones, and now that the kids are all bigger I got a bigger pool. It thankfully fit into Kate’s bedroom. We didn’t have a lot of balls, not even enough to cover the bottom of the pool, but you know what? They didn’t care. That thing was like a kid bug zapper… drew them all right in there! I did have some regrets that most of Kate’s friends are boys, also that those boys have really good throwing arms. Balls were whizzing all over the room and I and the other parents may have ducked out to avoid getting injured. There was also a lot of screaming – happy over-excited screaming – mostly from my daughter, apparently. She recently picked that nifty trick up and yikes. I’m glad she only does that on special occasions. The others were all in on it too, so it was full on cacophony in my house.

The menfolk all escaped outside to grill the burgers in the drizzle. They said it was much quieter out there.

We had burgers and hot dogs, pasta salad and fruit salad. And potato salad, but I kind of forgot to put that out until the end. There was also mint mousse cake, which, yes, is as good as it sounds. There was none left over. Note to self: order larger cake.

Kate was SO EXCITED to have a party. There are a lot of books and TV shows about birthday parties so she’s pretty familiar with the concept…. first thing she said was “My fwends come to my party!” and the second was “I have some cake!” I told her 4 days before, which seems like a large gamble as she’s just starting to understand the concept of time and “later.” We did the “four sleeps!” thing and that really worked well for her. Of course she tried to game the system by pretending to take a nap on the couch and then would sit up and say, “I did it!! Four sleeps! I did it! My party!” Haha kid, it doesn’t work like that. But she didn’t get upset and she was very happy about bedtime and waking up in the morning each day when we would announce “Now only three sleeps!” She was thrilled to see the decorations taking shape (though she was not all too helpful as I was trying to make them), so excited to see balloons when they showed up, and she was pretty much giddy when her “fwends” arrived. And thus all the screaming – that was just too much excitement to keep bundled up inside. :) She was fabulous. A little distractable and hyper, but polite and sweet. She proudly handed out the gift bags as people left.

Ember was okay with the commotion, she actually crawled into Kate’s room to watch the big kids for a while until I removed her for her own safety. Then she just played on the floor with the couple other quiet kids. She hung out with the grandmas and uncles. But then she cried for me and wouldn’t let me put her down. Too late, too tired, too much for her. I tried putting her in her highchair for cake and she just put her arms up and cried. Awwww. I feel a little bad that her first birthday party really wasn’t much about her, but I think if you’d ask her she’d say that was perfectly okay with her! She had no idea what was going on. Her actual birthday isn’t for two more weeks and she’ll get a birthday cupcake then. :)

The girls got fabulous gifts! I am always just so relieved when people don’t go too overboard. Lots of clothes, which is absolutely fantastic because neither of them have much that fits. Some art stuff for Kate, which she loves and will absolutely use. Some books, a few toys. A splash pool and water sprayer, which today was fan-tas-tic (it was so hot out!). It still felt overwhelming to open all those gifts, but Kate was all into it this year. Surprisingly she understood that some were Ember’s and she would hand Ember things, “Emmer, this is YOURS!” One of Kate’s favorite “gifts” is the balloons, she’s still playing with them days later – they are lasting a long time but she will be sad when they are gone.

DSC_2666

DSC_2669

DSC_2691

DSC_2700

DSC_2739

DSC_2740

DSC_2783

DSC_2788

2 responses to “Birthday Party!”

  1. Ashley L says:

    So adorable! Sweet sisters! I LOVE the Lorax theme!!! Such creative decorations. I’m going to have to steal this idea for my oldest’s next birthday.

  2. Neeroc says:

    Love the theme! And those dresses? Adorable. Happy birthday little ones!