Birthday Season - Part 1

What a weekend - well, actually, what a week!! As I've posted before, September is "birthday" season around here. I've spent the better part of the last week running around doing "birthday stuff". Brendan's actual birthday was on Saturday 9/15. Amanda's is coming up on Friday 9/21. So Sunday was the big "double header" combined birthday bash - the family party for both of them, which also included a few of Brendan's friends. We ended up doing the Mets/baseball theme all the way - from the decorations to the "baseball stadium food" and baseball-themed games and pinata - and it was a big hit (no pun intended). But boy was it a lot of work. I spent the whole week getting ready - shopping, cleaning, cooking, making decorations, hand-painting the favors, etc. Because it was kind of like throwing two parties at once, I felt like I was running twice as fast. Usually for a family party, I'll go nuts on food and maybe decorations, but I don't do games/activities or favors. But because Brendan's friends were included this time, I had to throw in all those kid-oriented "extras" (which is more fun for me, but also more work.) I am exhausted, and 24 hours after end of the party, my feet STILL hurt. It was worth it though. The kids had a great time, and my relatives all complimented me on "outdoing myself again". (I have quite the reputation for going overboard when it comes to themed parties)

Saturday, in between party prep, we tried to cater to Brendan as much as possible on his special day. I made him homemade banana muffins for breakfast (his request), and we gave him one or two gifts at a time at various times throughout the day. His favorite gift? The GREEN digital camera that he had asked for. (Leave it to Kevin to actually find a GREEN digital camera that was inexpensive enough to give to a 7-year-old. Gotta hand it to the man - he is great at shopping for gifts.) We did Brendan's special birthday dinner at home - we convinced him that that would be better than going out to a restaurant because we still had a lot to do to get ready for the big party on Sunday. Kevin had promised him a lobster - now what 7-year-old do you know who gets a whole lobster for his birthday dinner???

Now it kind of looks like this weekend was all about Brendan, but birthday season is not over yet!! Amanda's big day is coming up fast, and then she'll be having a separate girly-girl sleepover party with her friends (which is why she didn't invite any of them to the baseball bash). So I get a LITTLE bit of a break, and then it's back into party mode...