David's 5th Birthday Party

We handed out a few of these invitations.

And we were so excited to have friends over to help us celebrate David's birthday!

We went to bed the night before the party with two major accomplishments. One was that I actually had everything decorated. If you know me and my standard "Carmin time" you'll know that feeling on top of a party before it begins is a huge accomplishment. I love hosting people, but not great at the time management leading up to hosting. So that's one of my personal areas of improvement I'm working on. For this particular party in January, I felt successful. The other accomplishment was that we had our entire basement cleared out of boxes. We now officially have a rec room/second family room for playing! Yay! This was definitely the selling feature of the house, so I am thrilled that we can now use it as I imagined.

 Here's the loot ready for our guests--bags and a pinata. Can you see what the pinata is? Going along with the construction theme, it's a wrecking ball. Easiest pinata ever. (But somehow it still managed to take up lots of hours of my week in making it! So glad I didn't try something more difficult than keeping it in a ball shape.)

 Party games were simple. We pulled out the oldies but goodies. We did pin the nail on the hammer, but other than that, I didn't feel the pinterest pressure to make all the games have the construction theme. We went back to the classics, like Red Rover (Daddy and Madi made a team for a good part of that game!)

 While these boys and Brynlee held their own quite well.

 The team size increased by 50% right before we broke it up for lunch. We also played Mother May I, Red Light Green Light, Hot Potato and Duck Duck Goose.

 Picnic on the floor. This meal was hillarious. I thought every kid would like our menu: mac 'n cheese, jello jigglers, canned peaches and cheetos. The cheetos were the only hit. I had everything in pre-portioned cups so I could easily serve the food. The kids started telling me that they only like macaroni when it is shaped like "this" or "that." Um. Sorry, this is what we've got, kids. I finally cleared everyone's plates away and served dessert: Oreos and ice cream cups. No cake at the party, just dessert that little kids love.

Partygoers: Christian, Hunter, Lucas, Ethan, David, Tyler, Brynlee, Jonathon, Bennett and Madi

 A huge lesson on breaking open the pinata: Let the little guys have a turn before the biggest kid takes a whack. Actually, the pinata was not broken open by hitting it. The string broke, and before I could retrieve it to re-tie the string, the pinata had been ripped in two. That was a lot of work for only 2 kids to have a turn. The other kids were so stunned that it was open (or maybe this was their first time seeing a pinata?) that it took a while for the mob action to happen. After a few minutes, this is what the crowd looked like. Everyone seemed happy with their collection of goodies, so I guess the pinata was success, even if it was short-lived.

David had a great time, and felt loved by so many of his friends coming over to celebrate. David loves being with people more than anything else, so this party was very special to him. His only wish that didn't come true was that his cousins could please get on an airplane so they could come to his birthday party, too. We hope that someday that can happen! But for this year, David was in 5-year old heaven.

This last part is for my journaling sake--not at all to take away from the fun of the party. This is keeping it real. The last kid left and I wanted to take a nap for 3 days straight. Wow. That was a lot of work. Next time I'm not going to do that alone. I went to school to be a pre-k to 3rd grade teacher. At the end of the party, I realized that my stress level was through the roof, and I was so grateful that those career aspirations never panned out for me. I wouldn't call it high stress as much as high energy. At one point, I was trying to get the hot potato back to start a new round, and I felt like the kids were all playing keep away with me. It was borderline chaos at times. Whatever it was, it wiped me out. About 10 minutes after the party ended, I was laying on the couch with a splitting headache and wondered how long it would be before I did that again. I kept thinking that if I waited long enough to blog about the party, that this perception would soften or go away. Well, it hasn't. But from what I hear, everyone else found the party to be a rip-roaring good time, a smashing success, and the kids went home all sugared up. And David felt loved. Yep, I'll be doing that again.