I cannot believe it, but Sunday afternoon we celebrated Charlie’s 2nd birthday. After Charlie’s 1st birthday party, a stressful event for Jason and me in which we fed hotdogs and hamburgers to 50-some people in our garage since it rained, we vowed that for Charlie’s next birthday party we would be ordering pizza. We didn’t time it right and Charlie couldn’t take a nap, and it was just plain exhausting. This year, I really wanted to have a nice party that I could also enjoy! When the time came around to begin planning his party, however, I found myself veering in the direction of another stressful event.
The guest list ballooned to over 70 people as I tried to include all of our humongous, blended families, as well as Charlie’s new friends from storytime. We decided that instead of pizza, we would use some of the hundreds of hotdogs in our freezer that were left over from a recent fundraiser. And, my choice of a bubble theme proved to be difficult to shop for.
This could have been bad, very bad, but thanks to the help of my family, and to God, it turned out very well! My mom gave me a clean house for Mother’s Day, so I didn’t have to worry about cleaning all week. I spent Saturday cooking baked beans, cupcakes, and chili, and we borrowed tables and chairs from our church instead of renting them like we did last year. The next day, all we had to do was put tablecloths on the tables, heat up the beans, and cook the hotdogs. It really fell together nicely.
I did start to have a nervous breakdown a couple of hours before everyone arrived, and decided that only God could help me at that point. He kindly reminded me that this day was to celebrate the best thing to ever happen to me-Charlie. I kept that in mind the rest of the day, and it was wonderful. We had a great time, the rain held off until that night, and everyone who loves my son most was there to celebrate with him.
With that being said…next time, we’re ordering pizza for sure!
Oh boy, to I how the near nervous-breakdown is! I feel the same way for my kids’ birthdays. When I was a kid, my mom got a cake (small), some chips, some dip and some pretzels. That was IT. I celebrate all three kids’ birthdays on the same day because they’re all within four weeks of each other. Catered. It’s the only way, but I wish it was just chips and dip. 🙂 Glad it all came together.
That is great that you can have them all together! When I was checking out at the grocery store with 100 hotdog buns, the lady working acted like I had lost my mind!
Ha, I bet! I feel like I live at Costco. Ugh.