The Party is Over

Thank goodness. Now I am beginning to understand why parents will fork out several hundred dollars to a business so that they may just show up with their child and have all the details laid out before them concerning their child's party. Saturday was a little crazy and I would hate to think of how it would have turned out if I hadn't scaled the party back even further than I had initially planned. Past parties for my kids have always looked like the following...invite all the family (even the extended family from Iowa), hope a good majority of them show up, have the house decorated to go with the chosen theme of the party, have a snacky/finger food type spread on the table followed by cake and presents of course. The only exception to this formula was Isaiah's 4th birthday, because Avery was only 4 days old at that party and so we reserved a room at a restaurant and had the majority of the party there.

I had planned to use that sure-fire formula for Huston's party - I knew the Iowa folks would not make it cause they'll be on their way here for next weekend's wedding reception party, but I thought that since we would have a smaller gathering of guests I could totally follow the formula and have a great party. Then the weather came - yucky cold, cloudy and even a few snow flurries - not the weather I had hoped for. We were having 4 male cousins under the age of 5 coming to add to our group - outside time was a necessity or my house would not survive it. So on Friday night I scrapped the meal plan - we would go to Burger King, let the brood of children play in the playplace and eat a burger and then go to our house for the cake, and that's what we did, and I am so glad.

Avery was a huge bundle of fit yesterday. He was just not feeling good. Steven had a headache. I had been up all night Friday night with either Avery, Lillie or throwing up (thanks to Isaiah for sharing his 18-24 hour flu). Right before the party was to start Avery was throwing a fit and Lillie was throwing up half her bottle all over her cute little "party" sleeper I had her in. I was really ready to just pick up the phone and tell everyone to forget it. How do you shower one child with love and attention on their birthday without making a huge commitment of time and fuss? When you all have a suggestion or answer let me know. I love making a big deal over the birthday child...we don't do very much on Christmas or Easter because the emphasis is to be on the proper reason for those seasons. But birthdays to me are a celebration of their life. So I want to make it a big deal, but I don't want to make it a stressful day where I am totally not paying attention to the child because I have so many "to-dos" to take care of. More on this in a future post - its something I have been trying to figure out for quite awhile now...

Anyway I think it was just a flooky instance because multiple people in our family was out of sorts. Past birthdays have never been so crazy to prepare for so I doubt that simply the added responsibilities of the addition of Lillie made this party that much more stressful. So anyway here are some pictures of the event. We did have fun (well maybe Lillie didn't in the end - too much going on, I had a very over stimulated baby girl by the time the party was over, but she went to sleep after everyone left and survived it all too).

The birthday boy with his cake...

The middle of the big cake has Huston written in the spiderweb and the small cake has the number 4...ala Charlotte's Web style (thought those words would be more appropriate than "some pig" or "radiant")

The cousins, minus Avery, at the Burger King play place...Avery stayed with G.G. this portion of the party cause he was such a total tired ball of grumpiness. If we could splice these two photos together I think we would have a good shot of each of them.

Uncle Daniel and Aunt Carol with the birthday boy and their new baby niece that they hadn't yet met...

Uncle Jason wanting a hug from Avery, who was refusing, and what Avery thought about that...he did go and give him a hug later...

Huston with his birthday booty (as in pirate, not the vulgar definition)...he got a lot of outside toys and a lot of spiderman stuff...what else could a boy want?

And one last cutie picture of my nephew Dillon - he's a funny guy - and our living room today, the day after the party...believe it or not we've already hauled a bit of stuff out.

Anybody want to come clean my house and figure out where to store all this new stuff? Didn't think so.