Saturday, April 25, 2009

Sometimes birthday parties can be fun.

I'm the kind of person who generally dreads going to birthday parties for my kids' friends. There's always the loud volume level and the painful small talk with the parents who, in most cases, you don't know.  I actually try to find excuses not go take my kids to these parties, but sometimes, you just can't get out of going.  Today we had to go to a party for Madeline's friend Mary.  We know Mary and her family since they live around the corner from us.  Her mom and I are good friends and since we really like them, I didn't try to make up an excuse not to go to the party.  This party was at a toy store called Learning Express, so I was skeptical that this would actually be a fun party. I figured that I'd wind up with two kids begging me to buy more toys that we simply don't need and we'd be going home with crying children.  Turns out that neither one of them asked for a single thing and they both left the store smiling. I found a toy that I wanted, but Bryan wouldn't buy it for me.

I wound up having a lot of fun.  The toy store had this neat glider thing  (this is the toy that Bryan wouldn't buy me) that you sit in and when you move your feet back and forth you propel yourself forward.  I was scooting all over the store in it.  My neighbors all found my antics rather amusing. The toy is a great work out for your legs.

The only part of the party that wasn't to my liking was the craft part.  When I read craft on a party invite I imagine something that isn't going to create a permanent mess, but often that's not the reality.  This party had a tie-dye craft. Both of my girls have this wipe my hands on my shirt reflex that drives me crazy.  On an ordinary day I'd just deal with it, but when fabric dye is involved I can't help but go into frantic Karen mode.  Madeline was wearing a cute new outfit today that had a white shirt and there she is dripping dye dangerously close to her shirt.  She wound up with two tiny purple stains on her shirt.  I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get it out with some bleach.  Ellie was ready to go in for the kill of one of my favorite shirts on her as soon as she came in contact with the dye.  She was desperate to wipe her dye colored plastic gloves on her shirt.  I was going into a small meltdown as Bryan stood by taking pictures.  As I'm freaking out on the inside I realize that I'm coming close to having a Kate Gosselin moment.  So I wound up doing Ellie's tie dye shirt for her and told Madeline to put the dye down and step away so I wouldn't cause a scene.  I honestly don't know how I missed the part where Kelly, Mary's mom, told me about the tie dying.  She's knows that I'm a maniac when it comes to keeping the girls clothes nice so when she warned me this Wednesday I guess that was my cue to dress them in play clothes. Obviously, the paint fumes from earlier this week killed enough of my brain cells to make me have yet another Mommy Brain moment, because I didn't make a mental note about the tie dying.

The cupcakes at the party were another highlight for me.  Kelly made puppy cupcakes and her girls decided to decorate the cake box before the party.  When they moved the box it rocked the puppy cupcakes' world.  As a result the expressions on the cupcakes were priceless.  If they had been done by a professional baker I feel confident that they would have made it on to the Cake Wrecks blog.  Cake Wrecks confirms all the fears I've had about cakes for my kids' parties going wrong.  Bryan always tells me that I worry over nothing, but that blog confirms that sometimes cakes just don't go as planned. 

Poor Cupcakes....they look so concerned.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...