Birthday Party Time: Give Me a High 5!

We decided to host our kiddo’s fifth birthday party at our house. When asked, she requested hot dogs, cake, and friends to play with. Okay…that sounded simple enough…right?!?! Welllllll here’s the real story of how birthday party time went.

Theme/Supplies

Kids love themes so I took my kiddo to the party store to check out her options. Oh my! Who knew there were soooooo many choices?!?! Just as I was starting to wonder if this was a good idea, she quickly decided on Sunny Day. Perfect! I just bought one of everything figuring I would sort out what I would need/want later. Modern-day return policies are ahhh-mazing.

Invitations

In this day of technology, there’s a bunch of ways to do party invitations – computer generated, online printing services, email/text invitations…automatic reminders, links to online wish lists, etc. It’s a bit overwhelming. And the thought of doing all that with my OCD perfectionist brain AND getting it done before her birthday…just a few weeks away…made my head spin. I would prolly Beetlejuice and throw my computer across the room. And that would be the end of this post. Very sad. So I went old school. Handwritten paper invites. OMG! With all this amazing technology, who does that anymore? Ummmmm…me!

I hand wrote the invites early one morning. Yes, …it took a while…and my hand was hurting a bit like my school days of having to write “I will not talk during class” 500 times…but I had all of them written, addressed, and sealed before anyone was awake. We dropped them in the mail and hand delivered the ones to her neighborhood friends. Done…done…and done. All in one day. No stress. No meltdowns. And, no Beetlejuice. So this post continues because my computer did not go airborne!

Set up/Clean up

Knowing that my house was going to be turned upside down by a posse of sugar-crazed five-year-olds, I decided to keep the pre-party cleaning to a minimum. Instead of hiring cleaning help before the party…I opted to have them come after. Best decision ever.

Food

The cake was simple. I purchased a plain white frosted sheet cake/cupcakes and the kiddo decorated them with lots and lots of sprinkles. Oh, and did I mention the m&m’s? Yep…I’m pretty sure she put more in her mouth than on the cake! In an effort to balance the foreseeable sugar coma, I made sure we also had real food. But I started thinking it would probably be a good idea to have a few more choices other than just the requested hot dogs….hors d’oeuvres, veggie/fruit trays, pastries, side dishes, vegetarian/vegan options, etc. etc. etc. Yep…that originally simple menu snowballed into an avalanche so fast! So, unfortunately, I ended up spending too much time dealing with food and not enough time enjoying the party.

My advice to those brave enough to invite a gang of tiny humans into your home…Order pizza. Buy the cake. Eat outside. And let the ants do the cleanup after birthday party time. Or consider scaling back on your party.