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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Kid's Birthday Party

For a planner, I wasn't planning very well when I had my kids 3 weeks apart. Kendall's birthday is in September and Joey's in October. The first year we obviously wanted to keep them separate. She would need her special 1st birthday party and Joey would need something special as well since this was the first time he had to deal with a birthday before his own. We figured it might be tough on him. At the age of 4 he wouldn't understand why she gets to have her birthday first. So we did an over the top carnival party for his 4th birthday. The next year I convinced Joey to let Kendall share a party with him. What theme do you do for a boy and a girl? Monkeys! since they are ones!. The worked out great! Well for her 3rd birthday I decided a low key princess party would work nicely. About 5 girls came over dressed up and it was nice to have such a small gathering. We did the big family BBQ thing for Joey's that year. Two parties is still a lot to deal with in such a short span. Last year I tried to talk them into a joint party again...but they were both adamant about separate ones. For the first time ever, I gave up some control and offered them the option to hold their party outside of the house. Kendall did not want to, but Joey did. he chose gymnastics. It was heaven to not have to clean my house before and after his party. I loved that party! So this year, I nudged them both in the direction of a joint, outside the house party. They agreed on Bowling...yes, that wasn't too hard! Bowling was also the least expensive of the choices I gave them. Unfortunately Joey only had one friend show up and Kendall had two and cousin Kaylie also came. So it was a pretty quiet and I must say well behaved group of 6 kids. They had a blast. most had never bowled before, including Kendall. You just gotta love bumpers. I grew up in a bowling family and way back when I was there age, they didn't have light balls, or small sized shoes or bumpers...what a change of an experience I could have had. I also always make the cake...I pride myself in a themed cake. I'm not good at it, but I want to do it anyhow. This year I was going to do bowling ball looking cupcakes. The night before I was sick and the thought of one more task was daunting. I begrudgingly took the kids to the store and let them pick out a store bought cake...this was very hard for me. At first I thought it was going to be very hard for them to agree on a cake...Kendall wanted the one with flowers...of course that wasn't Joey's style...he wanted the super, all chocolate one. Once we told him the flower cake was chocolate, he agreed....too easy! So I hope next year's party (and I say that singular)...will go just as well :)

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