Party Planning Girls

Kaitlyn and I have been busy making plans for her first “Friends Party”, a privilege reserved up until now.  Her real birthday may have been several weeks ago but Rick has been at work for all but one of the Saturdays since then and just coming off of Christmas we needed time to get our plans together.  As birthday parties approach for my children I have this birdie on my shoulder that says “let’s pay someone else to throw a party somewhere else… like a bowling alley or a McDonalds or anywhere else… but then I decide my original idea that home parties are better still holds true and when we get on a roll they are really a lot of fun.  Plus it’s a great way for me to spend time with my child one on one, more or less.  We talk, plan, shop, create, cook and together come up with a great product that is uniquely our own and I’m glad for it all.  This holds true once again.  As we were pouring through various materials for ideas there was one that sort of evolved and then finally jumped out at us.  Why not have a Snowman Party???  So we are doing it up everything Snowman from the music and craft to the games and food.  Even the cake and ice cream will be all snowmen and we’re excited.  We have worked on our home made invitations all week for our “Once there was a Snowman” party and finally they are ready to pass out to friends tomorrow.  They have to be handed out in person or else mailed in a padded envelope (a down side to this particular invitation).   



Here is the bag containing all of the completed invitations to hand out.  Hooray!  Now hopefully we’ll end up with weather NOT be conducive to actually building a snowman but to getting friends over to our house.  January can bring any kind of weather with it.  We’re hoping for all things “Snowman” EXCEPT the weather next Saturday.  (And yes, my invites are going out a little late but I’ve already alerted their mothers to the date via the wonders of technology… No, I’m no Martha).



The invitation front is designed with buttons originally being sewn on with different colored threads making the facial features but as my dabs of glue hardened I found it impossible to drive a needle through… so I resorted to fine tipped permanent markers.  Still cute.  The invitations also feature a shimmery blue ribbon, various snowman stamps on the inside as well as the name tag on the invite.  The party information is found inside the folded invitation.  Kaitlyn helped design and glue these together.  She helped me tie the ribbons and she wrote her friends names on the tags herself.  You might guess that we will be busy all this coming week now preparing games, prizes and food. 
Side story… when I went shopping for my family’s two week supply of food AND the party food the cashier giggled when she asked if I found everything OK!!!  I already knew what was coming.  When I said “oh yes, just fine, thank you” she commented that I certainly had a lot of candy, pretzels and cookies!  It was like being on that TV show “What would YOU do?” only I hadn’t signed up for any such thing.  I told her I was shopping for my five kids AND a birthday party and then left her with a smile.  She didn’t say anything more.  One of the reasons I like shopping at Sam’s so much (this wasn’t Sam’s) is because no one looks at you like you have antennas coming out of your forehead when you buy a four pack of butter or five pound container of mixed salad greens or a gallon jug of vinegar or a food service size box of salt or two 25lb. bags of flour.  Now I had a good number of fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products and even glue sticks in my cart too but the cashier only took note of ice cream flavors and bags of candy for favor bags for 7-8 visiting kids.  I didn’t go into the fact that their $1 deals mean that I stock up on those particular items this time that I won’t buy now until the next time they go on sale.  Yes, I shop differently from most.  Just because I buy 4 bags of chicken this trip doesn’t mean that the only meat I eat for the next two weeks is chicken!  Just because I bought 10 bottles of conditioner doesn’t mean I forgot the shampoo or that I’m buying for a hotel.  People pass judgment way too quickly on other people.  I save a lot of money shopping the way that I do.  Anyway, I digress…
So Kaitlyn is very excited about having her friends over and she’s been looking forward to a friends party for a while now.  It was kind of funny because on her “real” birthday we got done eating dinner and were sitting down in the living room getting ready for presents when Kaitlyn called everything to a halt.  Sitting there she said “Mom, when are my friends getting here?  I can’t open my presents or have cake until my friends get here.”  I told her they weren’t coming that night.  She responded “but I promised Enoch that he could come to my birthday party and have cake with me.  I promised!”  I had to tell Kaitlyn that it was a school night and that we would plan a party with games and another cake for a coming Saturday and we would give her friends invitations.  Then she smiled in relief, rolling her eyes at herself for not understanding.  She’s pretty funny sometimes.