Birthday Parties...

I love to celebrate the birth of my children.  Maybe it stems from not having large parties to celebrate my birth as a child, or maybe it just comes from my love of hosting gatherings, party planning and seeing everything come together at the last minute.  But, I can't help but think every year, people open their mailboxes in mid-February and groan at the thought of having to attend yet another party - one with a theme, and a cute poem on the invitation, lots of small children and messy cake.  Now that I have two children for whom to have parties, I thought I needed to make a change.  I can't honestly expect everyone to trek to my house bearing unnecessary gifts (because believe me, my kids don't need anything else) twice a year.  Conveniently enough, exactly six months apart.  It gets time consuming and expensive.  So, I decided to use a method that my friend Tiffany (www.theirbunmyoven.blogspot.com) executes for her family, with a few of my own modifications...

She has four daughters and they each get a birthday party on their even-yeared birthdays.  I've decided to go ahead and allow the boys to have a school party every year - their classmates change and it's rare that they get to see them outside of school.  But, we're limiting family/personal friends celebrations to odd-yeared birthdays.  Of course, we'll have the grandparents to celebrate with dinner on their actual day of birth, but this two-parties-in-one-day-so-my-house-doesn't-fall-to-the-basement-from-the-weight-of-bouncing-kids thing is not happening this year.  You see, in the past, we've hosted his school party in the AM, allowed just enough time to clean up before we hosted his family party in the evening.  It's hard work and last year, being in the first trimester of pregnancy, I didn't know if I'd be able to wake from my post-pre-party nap to entertain the second round of guests.  By the time everyone leaves, I'm dead on my feet.  So, I'm treating myself this year - I'm letting the kind folks at Don Carter Lanes do all the work.  I'm simply ordering a cake and showing up.  I may really go all-out and add a few personal touches to their goody bags, but that's about it.  And I look forward to actually having time to brush my teeth the day of the party and coming home to a clean house with nothing to do but relax with my family after a meager two and a half hour event.

So, in 2011, friends and family - all we'll be doing is having a party for Hunter when he turns one (and that doesn't have to come...he can stay my sweet little baby FOREVER!)  But, if you're lucky enough to have a child in Cole's class - you might wanna be watching your mailboxes in the next week or so - we're going BOWLING!  =D