So technically D’s birthday isn’t until next week, however we had his party last weekend since I decided we would have a better chance of getting people to attend if the party wasn’t so close to Thanksgiving.
I always feel like D gets short changed on his birthday compared to K’s. With D’s birthday being in proximity to Thanksgiving (or on Thanksgiving) it just seems to me that his celebration is never all that it should be. I’ve decided to make sure that doesn’t happen in the future and I started with this year’s party.
D decided that he wanted a Black Train party this year (so no Thomas trains) with a Lightening McQueen cake. I had found the most adorable black train paper products on Oriental Trading but I didn’t get them ordered in time. I tried to order them with about 10 days to go before the party and it was going to cost $15 in ‘expedited’ shipping to get them here in 7 days. Considering the entire order was only $13 I didn’t think that was a good deal. That also meant that I was completely stressed on how I was going to get the decorations that I wanted for his party. We tried WalMart and Party City, no luck. I was pretty sure that Target didn’t have any and knew the dollar store didn’t have them so I was absolutely panicked that D’s party was going to be horrid because I didn’t have these decorations. (Okay, I realize that isn’t very rational, but I’m a Mom give me a break.) I knew there was a party store next door to the post office that I use for work and that was my last hope. It is a giant warehouse of party things so I was cautiously optimistic that they would have what I needed. I went in and looked all around the birthday party section, twice, and couldn’t find what I was looking for. I finally asked one of the ladies there and she took me over to a little board where they had some plates taped up and there was a black steam train. Not identical to what I had seen but really cute and close enough that I knew D would be thrilled. It turns out that this board held items that they didn’t have the room to put on the shelves but that they still had in the storage area. She took me back into the storage room and pulled out two boxes full of party supplies for this theme. I have to admit that I went a little over budget due to my excitement and my gratefulness for her help, but D was so excited when I picked him up from school and showed him what I bought that it was more than worth it. As an added bonus a couple of the decorations became room decorations after the party so they did double duty.
One thing I have noticed about D’s school is that not very many people show up to birthday parties. We have been to parties where even though I knew the entire class had been invited we were the only one from school. Because of this I was very excited that 5 of D’s classmates RSVP’d to the party. Those 5, plus my 2, plus his 3 cousins would be more than enough kids to have a fun party. Being that the party was going to consist primarily of 3 and 4 year olds and that we wouldn’t be able to go outside because of the weather, I made it a very short party, only 1.5 hours. This turned out to be perfect. The kids played trains in the front room together, we did one party game (that I had bought because I couldn’t think of anything fun to do to make. Who makes these games and the fact that they must not have kids is another topic altogether), then we had cake, presents, a little more play time and it was time for everyone to leave. Yea!
After the party the cousins stayed and played for a few hours which incredibly fun and, I think, made D’s day all the better.
Overall I think I achieved my goal and D finally had a birthday party that truly helped him celebrate his special day.
D is 4 now. Can you believe it?
No comments:
Post a Comment