Birthday Parties

Seems to be the season for birthday parties. M had one a couple weeks ago, and S had one yesterday, with another one coming up Monday. We also were going to have a family party this weekend for two of my nieces, a nephew, my son, and my husband, but one of the other nieces is so sick that we decided to put it off until she was feeling better.

Yesterday's party was for a little girl in our playgroup. Her mom and her friend made a Dora cake, and the cake looked absolutely gorgeous. The colors were exactly right. S was terribly impressed and spent a lot of time staring at it.

My SIL taught me a super easy technique to make really cute flower barrettes, so I made a set for S's friend. Basically, you need some alligator clips (or those bendy barrettes if Walmart is out of the alligator clips), a couple of scrapbooking brads, and some silk flowers. If you push the brad through the center of the flower, and then anchor it in the alligator clip, you don't have to use hot glue, which can often come off. I thought it turned out really cute.

Yesterday I called to RSVP for the party Monday. It's going to be at Chuck E Cheese. I was talking to the mom, and she told me she'd invited their entire preschool class of 12 kids. So far, I was the first to RSVP, and today is supposed to be the deadline to RSVP. I was a bit horrified when I found out.

I'll admit that birthday parties are a touchy subject for me. We've had some bad experiences in the past with poor turnout, and I'm still a little resentful about it. For M's 6th birthday, we invited his three best friends from school for a birthday party. Not a single one showed up. To make matters worse, my grandfather in CO died, so I had to miss his birthday for the funeral. My wonderful, amazing husband managed to make a fantastic party for M at the last minute, so it wasn't a total loss, but I was really angry with those moms for that.

After that, I decided to not put a lot of effort into planning parties. M's party wasn't the only incident, but it was the final straw.

My friend Heidi is completely dependable, and has 5 awesome kids, so just inviting her family is enough to make a decent party, and she and her kids have done so more than once.

After a couple years of nagging, my kids wore me down, and K got a big birthday party last summer that was a smashing success. M wants a birthday party this year. I was all set to do it, but he's got some school issues, so it's still up in the air. However, he's shown a dramatic enough improvement that I think his party will happen. I think his party will be a video game party with his 5 closest friends.