Showing posts with label birthday party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday party. Show all posts

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Party Planning Overload

I have been juggling so many balls up in the air lately that one was likely to fall, roll away, and not be retrieved until necessary (or until someone fell over it).

The ball that got dropped?  Emmy's birthday party.  With my husband's work and some major changes possibly taking place, the when and who wasn't answered until last week when I realized I HAD to make a decision.  No more procrastinating.

I decided to have a little party with Emmy's playgroup friends and some of my other mommy friends and their little ones during the time we used to have playgroup.  This caused some confusion among my other mommy friends who were not in our playgroup.  I probably should have sent emails explaining why I was having a birthday party on a Friday morning.  It does seem a little odd, huh?

One set of invites was mailed late because my daughter who has a penchant for hiding things when I am not looking hid them behind the couch cushions.  I only found them because I was looking for the remote control. Then, I proceeded to put 10pm-1 pm on the invites.  This went unnoticed by me even after I proofread them. Reminder: Don't proofread your own writing.

I am the queen of lists and have several different lists and post-its all over my desk and the kitchen island. I love this craziness. 

I can't have just one list.  Oh, no.

My lists include:
  • a decoration list
  • a favor idea list
  • a guest list
  • a food list
  • an activity list/schedule for the party

Seventeen kids (10 toddlers, 3 babies, and 4 school age children) and 8 mommies.  This was my small party.  Yet, it is a simple party.  Food, a craft, a game, music and hopefully lots and lots of laughter. Really it is just a themed play date.

All of her little friends have had parties in the last year and Emmy gets so excited over the words cake and balloons.  That is really all it takes.  She has been talking about her birthday party for months (at least about the cake and balloons).

This will be the first year where she really gets what a birthday even is.

We are having a family get-together over the weekend just for cake and ice cream to.  THAT will be a low-key affair.

The theme, you ask?   A Fairy Tale Dance Party!

Only a soon-to-be-three year old girly girl would choose that theme.

Tonight I have a date with my Cricket machine to do the decorations and craft for the favor bag.  Yes, I am putting a craft (knight and princess paper dolls with their respective outfits) in the favor bag along with lollipops and stickers.

Tomorrow is cooking/baking day and cleaning day.

Friday is decorating day. 

If I can stay awake myself while the girls nap, I will blog about it Friday afternoon but it looks like the next 24 hours are going to revolve around me getting myself ready for the sheer crazy yet fun chaos that will ensue Friday morning!

 How do you prepare for birthday party madness? Do you bother?

*This post was written Wednesday night.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Birthday Party Invites

Recently my daughter turned two and we had a small party for her birthday. Since I had just had our second daughter only a month before I was looking for ways to keep this party simple. I knew the theme,Dora,of course, my daughter's favorite cartoon. I came across two websites that created FREE Dora (and other character) invites: I- Love-Cartoons.com and DLTK. These two sites let you plug in the information and print out however many copies you need. My kind of invites. For all of our friends and family who have email, I just signed up at evite and sent out online invitations free of charge. No writers cramp to worry about. Evite is fabulous. People can click on the link and rsvp (you can set it up so that when people rsvp you receive an email). Also, when you access your events invite, you can see when people opened the email (your guests can't pretend they didn't see the invite). It is a wonderful party planning tool. You can use this site for events other than birthday parties. If your having a picnic and you are having people bring items you can set up your invite so people can put what they are bringing.