Birthday Parties

     So my baby is turning 7 next Monday, don't get me started on that. I could go on a long time about how that makes me feel. Part of being a mom is birthday parties. I have now thrown 7 of them. Here is how the pattern goes: About two months before the party I start planning. What kind of theme do we want this year? Then I start thinking about decorations and food. About a month before said party I go shopping. Turns out my son is never obsessed with things when they are the "it" thing. When he was obsessed with Thomas and we had a Thomas party, I couldn't find anything. Turns out Thomas is big now, I could have thrown a pretty rocking Thomas party.

      This year's obsession is Star Wars. I don't like star wars, I hate the theme song, get my drift? But I love my boy so star wars it is. The only thing he asked for with his party was a star wars piñata. Turns out star wars isn't in right now and you can't find a piñata. So I went to my pal pinterest and I found out how to make one. And I made one.....THEN I BLEW IT UP!!! Yup, when I went to pop the inside I stabbed it and the whole damn thing blew apart......so I said it's ok I know what went wrong I can make a new one. But Parker said no, let's just buy a different one that walmart has, you will just blow up another one. On the bright side, I have learned that the death star is on the bad side, so  I guess I helped the good guys win...right? We ended up using the piñata I bought for his party two years ago that showed up 3 days after his party....Luigi totally fits into a star wars party it's all good.

      This was the first year that Parker had friends from school at his party. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Kids are not kids, there are categories. There are your kids, your siblings kids, and other people's kids. One of Parker's friends told me I was mean because I used my "serious" voice to tell the dog to go upstairs.
                                                     

This is my dog right this second, seriously took this picture less than a minute ago. Yep, looks like I am real mean to her, she clearly runs the show around here and she know it.

 

My siblings kids I can be real with, they do something they shouldn't I treat them just like I would my own kid. My siblings are the same way with my kid. But, when it's someone else's kid, you don't know the rules they have. You don't know how things are in their home, etc etc....So it was interesting. But it was ok and they were good. There was a lot of arm farts going on at the table which I typically wouldn't allow, but they were at least sitting at the table to eat so I let it slide.

 

The last couple of years I have been making Parker's cakes. I'm not sure why, it's just something I decided to do.  Perhaps it was the incident where my niece's cake came from walmart and there was a cloud that looked pretty much exactly like an inappropriate male body part...I'm sure it was an accident, but I don't know.... anywhoo, I really like making cakes. I do not claim to be a professional and I'm not all that artsy, but I still have fun doing it and will probably keep doing it.

 

So let's talk about this years cake...I made a three tier cake, but when I filled the pan for the bottom layer I forgot to spray it...and it didn't come out of the pan nicely at all. So the day of the party I had to remake the bottom layer. Then about three hours before the party I realized I had never gotten the frosting for the cake. I've tried making my own frosting and I've tried froting from a can, but nothing compares to the bettercreme whipped frosting that the real folks use. So, I had to drive to the next town over and buy the frosting. The people at  piggly wiggly are awesome enough to sell theirs in deli containers. Don't ask the walmart people to do that, they are not that nice. And they tried to sell me the star ship enterprise as a star wars fighter ship...some of the people that work there are SPECIAL!. Not all of them, don't get me wrong, there are some nice people there and I'm not hating on all of walmart. There are people that drive me nuts at a lot of places. I had a vision in my head of the cake, but the night before the party I decided we needed to get out of the house so instead of cleaning and making this masterpiece cake, we went out to eat and went skating with my family. It was worth it. The cake still tasted good and the kids didn't care if it wasn't a masterpiece. They are boys, they don't care.

 

Brian helped me with food, and when my sister arrived I put her to work too. I always do, even when we have card night or something, I always put her to work in the kitchen in some way. I love cooking but I'm not all that fast at prep. I blame it on being left handed. Brian says next year we are going to chuck e cheese or something and letting someone else do all the work. By the way, we did chuck e cheese once I think for Parker's 3rd birthday, he yelled at Chuck E when he was singing happy birthday to him.

 

 These are wookie cookies, my attempt to look like Chewbacca....not even close Parker tells me I should have done my research.

 Here is what the cake ended up looking like.

My attempt at a little dark side humor, who wouldn't go to the dark side for cake? Heck yeah, I'm there.

 

In the end, I blew up the death star, I wrecked part of the cake, there weren't many decorations because party city was lame and star wars isn't "in", but after everyone left and Parker and I settled in to watch a movie, he told me it was his best birthday yet. Lesson learned, I shouldn't put so much stress on throwing a perfect party. Kids just want to know they are special to you and that they are loved. It wasn't at all the vision I had when I started planning, but I would call it a success.