Birthday v2.0: Part-ies

If you missed the first installment, you can find it here. The second installment is here. For those of you rolling your eyes, I promise to find something other than my son's birthday to blog about soon...

So yesterday when I said that our ride on Thomas the Tank Engine with his six friends from playgroup was supposed to be my son's only big birthday celebration, I wasn't lying... exactly. In an effort to keep things simple, it was supposed to be the only thing...

Before I heard about "Day Out With Thomas", Hubby and I considered taking a family trip to SeaWorld in San Antonio over his birthday weekend. While it probably would have been just as expensive as throwing a party (or two parties in this case), it would have been LESS insane to plan for...

You see, I actually abhor the "bigger is better for birthdays" philosophy. We have just as much fun at parties held in a backyard or at the park as we do at Chuck E Cheese or the Wiggly Play Center. With so many parents turning their noses at big-budget kid's parties, it’s more of a statement if you don't have one too.

I feel absolutely no need to compete with any of the other parents we know. If anything, they would have to compete with us, because no matter how much we say that we want keep things low-key and small, we can't help ourselves. The word "simple" just isn't in our vocabulary.

We look at it this way... We have been blessed with so many wonderful friends and an awesome family, we LOVE throwing parties, and we adore our son. So what better excuse to invite all of our friends to a party for our son than his BIRTHDAY?! And that's where things start to unravel...

Next thing you know I'm stressing over the societal implications of our party favors, staying up late to mix party CDs, and antagonizing my local bakery...

Amidst the frenzy of planning and preparing, I kept asking myself, "who am I really do this for?" I mean, here I am dragging my son along to pick out birthday hats and balloon, instead of taking him to the park... "Is this really worth it?"

All it takes is this happy little face to know that it was!

"Thank you, Mommy. You throw a great party and have such shiny hair!"

But still... Next time when I promise to keep things smallish, simple, and low-key, do me a BIG favor and please hold me too it.

By the way, Gymboree did a FANTASIC job with the 12 two-year-olds, 3 baby sisters, 2 big brothers, and 1 five-year-old cousin that ended up making it to the party, as you can probably tell from the photos.

They were so imaginative, warm, and engaging. The best part? They took care of everything once we got there, which means no messy colored frosting on my walls and kitchen floor.