Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Hooray for Pinterest to tell me not only what kind of party to host, but how to decorate and how much effort I need to put out!
For the second year in a row, I decided to do a joint birthday party for Eden and Rhys. I did that for their 1st and 4th last year but felt like I had missed out on the excitement because I was so busy making sure that Rhys was opening his gifts and thanking people properly and that Eden was being taken care of that I regretted doing them together afterwards. If I had two separate parties then I could've spent more time with the child and had proper photos done and such. Since it was a double-party, I don't have many pictures at all of Eden for her First! :( So why was I doing it again? Well, because I had convinced myself it would be okay, since it was just going to be a small party! Never mind that it is Rhys' 5th and that is usually considered a "big one"! I was saving time and money, and that matters a lot in our house!
Rhys wanted a "Lego party", but I didn't think I wanted to do something that elaborate yet. Maybe next year. So I searched Pinterest for ideas and came up with a Monster Party! Yay! He was on board when I showed him the great pictures and I laughed and gushed over it. (and had a certain older sister get enthusiastic as well!) :) I had all these great plans too.... I'd decorate the house and we'd have a colourful theme and I could easily make all these monster games up...it was going to be awesome!
And it would've been. Really. But then suddenly it was just over a week to their birthday party and I still hadn't mailed out invitations! So in my rush, they didn't turn out as I hoped. :p Then I was putting together the games and I decided that I just didn't have time to put together the Monster Toss jug, so that wasn't going to happen. But I was happy with what I was accomplishing. I decorated the bottles for Monster Bowling and was quite proud of myself, thank you very much!
Teehee, I love them!
And then I decorated some Play Doh containers up and decorated the Goody Bags. Who wouldn't want these to take home???
And Abi and I made the cupcakes and decorated them into Monsters. How cute are they?
This one is Abi's favourite. She made it look like Aang, our favourite Avatar!
This one was my creation that made me giggle. Look, he has 3 eyes and all these marshmallow teeth!
This one is obviously a Monster project gone wrong!!! Eyes and teeth everywhere! LOL When I took it out of the baking muffin tin, part of it's bottom stayed behind, so I just turned it upside down and filled it with as much icing as I could and added stuff on top! Some poor child was on a sugar buzz after this one! teehee!
I was feeling good up to the party.
But then it all fell apart when I had all these thoughts and expectations in my head. I knew it didn't matter, and truly I didn't feel badly for what we had put together, and I wasn't upset that it wasn't a big group of people, since neither Eden nor Rhys have a huge collection of personal friends at their age. (Rhys will get his friends next year when he starts school) But it was the thought of how I wanted it to look in my head was not at all how it looked in real life. And I wondered if it somehow sucked. :( It's hard because Rhys' birthday twin (you may remember my sister's sister in law had their first baby on the same day as I had Rhys. They were both boys, born half an hour apart, and they both have the same middle name as James!) was having a grand huge party! His Mom goes all out!!! She rents out awesome things, like the park with a train for his 2nd birthday train-themed party, and the Batman for his super hero 5th party. And then she manages to decorate it to the top too! All hand made too! And she has a huge spread for food! Plus she has like 50 million friends with kids to invite! And it's amazing! *sigh* How do you "compete" with that?
I know I'm not competing, and I also am not trying. I'm okay with the fact that we don't know that many people or have that many family members (she is Filipino and their gathers are huge with tons of family. It is so neat to see!) and I'm okay that we just don't have the money to be able to put on the huge events. And I am okay with what we do, as our parties are intimate and fun and full of family and friends and we offer good food and the kids are always happen and we have great conversations. So why am I feeling like I have to "step up my game"? I guess I just see too many 'designer' parties that people throw for kids and I fall in love and I want it to be the same. I guess I also feel I should be able to do more, create more, decorate more, after all I'm a crafty person too.
Our party turned out great though. Eden and Rhys loved it! The cupcakes were yummy. The craft was fun. I got the kids to make their own Sock Monsters with old socks, buttons eyes, sequins, yarn, etc...it was neat to see their creations!
Josh's Sock Monster! (and his awesomely cool Star Wars tshirt!)
It was fun. But the games didn't work out. We lost the ball for the bowling, and we couldn't find the water bombs for the "catch the monster" game (Abi wanted to dress up as a monster and the kids would have to hit her with a water bomb toy!). We did a huge search for 20 minutes with everyone, but came up empty. :( Phooey. This party isn't one to brag about! LOL But...
No one complained. And our party was also great. My Baby turned two and my Boy turned five. And it was fun! ....It's funny the things we worry ourselves over!
For the second year in a row, I decided to do a joint birthday party for Eden and Rhys. I did that for their 1st and 4th last year but felt like I had missed out on the excitement because I was so busy making sure that Rhys was opening his gifts and thanking people properly and that Eden was being taken care of that I regretted doing them together afterwards. If I had two separate parties then I could've spent more time with the child and had proper photos done and such. Since it was a double-party, I don't have many pictures at all of Eden for her First! :( So why was I doing it again? Well, because I had convinced myself it would be okay, since it was just going to be a small party! Never mind that it is Rhys' 5th and that is usually considered a "big one"! I was saving time and money, and that matters a lot in our house!
Rhys wanted a "Lego party", but I didn't think I wanted to do something that elaborate yet. Maybe next year. So I searched Pinterest for ideas and came up with a Monster Party! Yay! He was on board when I showed him the great pictures and I laughed and gushed over it. (and had a certain older sister get enthusiastic as well!) :) I had all these great plans too.... I'd decorate the house and we'd have a colourful theme and I could easily make all these monster games up...it was going to be awesome!
And it would've been. Really. But then suddenly it was just over a week to their birthday party and I still hadn't mailed out invitations! So in my rush, they didn't turn out as I hoped. :p Then I was putting together the games and I decided that I just didn't have time to put together the Monster Toss jug, so that wasn't going to happen. But I was happy with what I was accomplishing. I decorated the bottles for Monster Bowling and was quite proud of myself, thank you very much!
And then I decorated some Play Doh containers up and decorated the Goody Bags. Who wouldn't want these to take home???
And Abi and I made the cupcakes and decorated them into Monsters. How cute are they?
This one is Abi's favourite. She made it look like Aang, our favourite Avatar!
This one was my creation that made me giggle. Look, he has 3 eyes and all these marshmallow teeth!
This one is obviously a Monster project gone wrong!!! Eyes and teeth everywhere! LOL When I took it out of the baking muffin tin, part of it's bottom stayed behind, so I just turned it upside down and filled it with as much icing as I could and added stuff on top! Some poor child was on a sugar buzz after this one! teehee!
I was feeling good up to the party.
But then it all fell apart when I had all these thoughts and expectations in my head. I knew it didn't matter, and truly I didn't feel badly for what we had put together, and I wasn't upset that it wasn't a big group of people, since neither Eden nor Rhys have a huge collection of personal friends at their age. (Rhys will get his friends next year when he starts school) But it was the thought of how I wanted it to look in my head was not at all how it looked in real life. And I wondered if it somehow sucked. :( It's hard because Rhys' birthday twin (you may remember my sister's sister in law had their first baby on the same day as I had Rhys. They were both boys, born half an hour apart, and they both have the same middle name as James!) was having a grand huge party! His Mom goes all out!!! She rents out awesome things, like the park with a train for his 2nd birthday train-themed party, and the Batman for his super hero 5th party. And then she manages to decorate it to the top too! All hand made too! And she has a huge spread for food! Plus she has like 50 million friends with kids to invite! And it's amazing! *sigh* How do you "compete" with that?
I know I'm not competing, and I also am not trying. I'm okay with the fact that we don't know that many people or have that many family members (she is Filipino and their gathers are huge with tons of family. It is so neat to see!) and I'm okay that we just don't have the money to be able to put on the huge events. And I am okay with what we do, as our parties are intimate and fun and full of family and friends and we offer good food and the kids are always happen and we have great conversations. So why am I feeling like I have to "step up my game"? I guess I just see too many 'designer' parties that people throw for kids and I fall in love and I want it to be the same. I guess I also feel I should be able to do more, create more, decorate more, after all I'm a crafty person too.
Our party turned out great though. Eden and Rhys loved it! The cupcakes were yummy. The craft was fun. I got the kids to make their own Sock Monsters with old socks, buttons eyes, sequins, yarn, etc...it was neat to see their creations!
Rhys is hard at work here.
Bryn, our neighbour Josh, Cousin Mia and Abi are working on their creations.
(For a few months, Rhys and Mia are both Five! her 6th bday is in Oct)
Josh's Sock Monster! (and his awesomely cool Star Wars tshirt!)
It was fun. But the games didn't work out. We lost the ball for the bowling, and we couldn't find the water bombs for the "catch the monster" game (Abi wanted to dress up as a monster and the kids would have to hit her with a water bomb toy!). We did a huge search for 20 minutes with everyone, but came up empty. :( Phooey. This party isn't one to brag about! LOL But...
No one complained. And our party was also great. My Baby turned two and my Boy turned five. And it was fun! ....It's funny the things we worry ourselves over!
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