Griffin's Birthday Bash Part 1

Yes, I am blowing the dust off my blog again!

The month of August has been jam packed full of action (and it's only the 16th!). In an attempt to rescue some details from the blur of the month, let's start with...THE BIRTHDAY!

In the past, Griffin's birthday parties have been mostly low-key family affairs. For his first birthday, we invited 20 adults to come celebrate with us at our place. Who knew it would be the rainiest day of the year (literally!). The sight of my husband standing at the grill in the pouring rain, not to mention people crammed shoulder to shoulder in our little house, made us rethink the home parties for a couple of years. Birthdays 2 and 3 were celebrated closer to the relatives, at my aunt's house in NH.

But this year, my husband and I decided to be brave and attempt the Mount Everest of social situations, the kids birthday party. After some debating about the location, we decided to stick with what we know, and have everybody come to our little house in the woods for some old fashioned hooting and hollering!

The first hurdle: invitations. Who, and how many, do we invite? The conventional wisdom for kids' parties says the birthday kid's age plus one is the perfect equation for guests. For us, that meant 5 kids. Easy enough, right? Is anything ever that easy?

The politics of pre-school indicate that an invitation should be issued to all classmates. Our dilemma: Griffin recently "graduated" from middle pre-school to older pre-school, and has good friends in both groups. The solution: invitations to everyone! That's right, 36 invitations issued. We weren't too worried about the guest list, as our past experience told us that many of the parents and kids wouldn't attend. We estimated we'd end up with about 7 kids. Until the RSVPs started coming in fast and furious, giving us a count of 16 kids and 21 adults.

Next hurdle: activities. As the yes's started mounting, we started to worry about making sure that everybody had something to do. Keep 'em busy, keep 'em happy! Busy kids also mean that parents can relax and enjoy some grown up conversation. Thank God for Oriental Trading Company! We got 72 little foam planes for the kids to fly, supplies for a make-your-own-sock-puppet activity, face-painting, tattoos, pinwheels and kazoos. And of course, the millions of cars and trucks that Griffin already owns, from the giant dump truck to the little micro-racers, perfect for the kids to race over the backyard terrain.

Final hurdle: food. In reality, this was not much of a hurdle at all. With the anticipated number of guests, we decided that keeping it simple was the best thing to do. Lots of fruit and veggies with some dip, crackers and cheese, and yummy southwestern eggrolls (vegetarian and chicken). No problem!

Once we had a plan in place, we felt relatively confident. I mean really, what could go wrong?