I’ve learned that I love birthday parties, but I hate getting ready for them. Each year I swear we’re going to do the next kid birthday party at a location other than our house, and then each year something comes up to make the costs too prohibitive, or we run out of time to book the location, or I worry that an outdoor location will pretty much guarantee rain and tornadoes that day.
The one upside of hosting the party at our house is it forces us to do a thorough cleaning of the house twice a year. (Three times if you count Christmas.) We spent part of last week and all morning Saturday clearing out piles of paper, choosing which of Cordy’s art projects to keep and which to toss, performing the semi-annual culling of the toy herd, and wiping down/dusting/scrubbing every surface in sight.
And then? The weather was so nice we forced everyone to come to the back gate so no one saw inside the house. Good thing we cleaned, eh?
Mira had a lovely birthday party. I love this age – she doesn’t care what the theme is, and we don’t have to have elaborate crafts or games or anything like that. In fact, the best part of her party, as far as she was concerned? Was this:
Who needs fancy decorations, performers, or lots of gifts? Give a two year old a bunch of balloons and you’ve got a happy kid. She dragged those balloons around for most of the day. Thank goodness they were tied to a sandbag, or she would have quickly become a very unhappy two year old.
She also received several nice gifts, including some beautiful clothes that she looked at, shouted “No!” and then promptly threw on the ground. Not sure if she was expecting toys or had issues with the style. (Personally, I liked the clothing. Our friends and family have good taste.)
Cordy did pretty well with the small crowd of people invading her personal space. She got a little wild at times, and ate way too much cake and ice cream, resulting in a severe tummy ache and GI distress the remainder of the evening. Poor thing – she kept asking me, “can you turn my tummy off, mommy?”
I think the party went well, even if it was small and disorganized. And I hope I’ve once again learned not to hold birthday parties at our house. Maybe I’ll remember that for Cordy’s party in September.
(And I wish I had more birthday pictures, but I was so busy keeping things running I didn’t take any. Now I’m at the mercy of my relatives sharing their photos with me.)
I have a love/hate relationship with birthday parties. I LOVE when they can be outside, though. THEN the house STAYS clean!
Happy Birthday to Mira! How can she already be 2? Have I really known you THAT long???
I love the look on the girls’ faces. So exciting! Balloons rock. Dawson still loves them. I only hate them when they pop and scare the poop out of me.
Yeah balloons rock. It doesn’t matter, you could be going to Kroger or a birthday party, and if there’s a balloon involved it seems to make the world a better place for these kids. Sounds like a great party! Nothing wrong with small and at home! They are the best kind.
so cute! happy belated Birthday to Mira!
i can’t wait to see you in a week and a half!
xoxo
Happy Birthday to Mira! And you can’t go wrong with a giant bunch of balloons!
Happy Birthday to Mira! She looks so happy with those balloons.
The last party we hosted was filled with kids running and dragging the bunch of balloons behind them, shouting with glee.
I loved our two year birthday at home for my eldest, but then this year, what with physical therapy for the baby and blah blah blah I bailed and spent a ton of money taking three year olds to a bounce house, and so I didn’t get a spring clean. I rationalized that this year it was better to charge up some debt than stress myself with the pre-cleaning and decorating and the after-cleaning (which I might just ignore). The upside was, the kids LOVED the huge inflatable slide and parents went too and I brought a ton of extra kids to pay off a social debt and you could totally have a bunch of different ages because the place was so big. But I missed the being more mellow part and the opportunity to not have to get just the right stuff, because she is still too young to feel the pressure of the Princesses overly much. Yeah, I get the love/hate relationship with parties!
Those balloons look good on the birthday girl!