The Party Year - Growing Family

We are, by nature, inclusive people. When it comes to birthdays, we like our community to surround our kids. Why stop at a couple same-age friends when there are siblings and families and special adults to celebrate with us??

Well I'll tell you why. Fun as it is to have 50 people in your backyard when a forecast of rain reshuffles your beach-intended party, and fun as it is to have 50 people crowding the local (grubby) Scout Hall when the forecast of rain reshuffles your park-intended party, doing that a couple times around can kind of do your head in. Catering for 25+ adults, and 25+ kids, in a change of venue, is a lot of food, and a lot of party bags, and a lot of EVERYTHING.?

We decided it was time for a new plan.

We settled on the party-every-other-year approach.?

Still recovering from the above mentioned extravaganzas, last year was our no-party birthday year. Thank God, too, because last year was challenging enough with starting out as foster carers, without adding birthday bashes on top!

Of course we still celebrated, and this is how we did it. Following my family's tradition of letting a child choose their birthday supper and dessert, we thew in the option of choosing a favorite restaurant or having me make their special meal. Lucky me, each child wanted to eat out. I brought some party hats to the restaurant, baked a fun cake, and the celebration was complete.

We have also begun to learn from experience that we don't need to give our children many presents. Initially, I thought that our children would not have "enough" presents at holidays and birthdays, since they live so far from relatives. After several rounds of ending up with heaps of presents because we bought lots, AND lots arrived in the mail and from friends, we've settled down to about one nice present for the birthday child. Now the approach to a birthday is marked with packages arriving and piling up in wait for the special day!

This year is the party year and this weekend BOTH my boys celebrate their birthdays. Small Sun turns 7 and Finch turns 3.?

After attending some really fantastic parties, and talking to friends, I am settling on the "less is more" approach this year. That is, a few close friends doing something really fun that you couldn't pull off with 25+ kids.?

For Small Sun, The Captain is going to execute the entire birthday celebration, along with another Dad who has offered to come on board. (Interestingly enough, all the Dads offered to come along as an extra chaperone, which leads me to think the party sounds pretty good.). Small Sun's friends will congregate at a nearby ferry wharf to ride the ferry into Darling Harbour. First they will stop at a pizza parlour to eat pizza to their hearts content. Next they will attend the IMAX Theatre's?The Last Reef?show in 3D. Then, they will spend about an hour playing at the new playground at?Darling Quarter, before eating a cake The Captain ordered and will pick up in the city. Sugared up and played out, they will return on the ferry to be collected by their parents.?

While they are away, I will be home cleaning the house because on Sunday, we will celebrate Finch's birthday with three other families and their collective six children.

For this party I am inspired by a friend whose child's third birthday we recently celebrated. Her approach was to cater to the parents and let the kids play in the back yard. Of course, being married to an Italian, and being a fantastic cook herself, we love to go to their parties to eat. We usually roll home and spend the rest of the day lying about, digesting.

Who says a child's party needs to be all party games and craft activities? Having their friends over for a giant play date is pretty special when they are three. It doesn't need to be much more complicated than that!

So for Finch's birthday, I am focusing on the adult food. Since he is currently addicted to?Wallace & Gromit?and their moon cheese adventure, I am going with a rocket theme. I have forked out to have a professional do a rocket cake, and am planning to let the kids decorate cardboard boxes with tin foil, etc, to build "rockets". There are all sorts of crazy crafty-gamey things you can do, but I think I'll keep it simple. For party favors I bought glider planes for each child and I plan to tape lollipops to the bottom (like sweet bombs, I suppose).

I think these parties will probably cost nearly as much as the big shindigs, but I think they will be better quality. I never enjoy parties where you spend 2 hours in a kid/sugar induced mayhem, only to leave with a party bag full of sugar and toys that break in the car. I am looking for a different way to do this whole thing, and I hope this weekend is a success!

What do you do for birthdays at your place? If you have a young child and you celebrate their birthday on a different day than their "real" birthday, do you tell them when it is their real birthday as well? Wish me luck!

?

?

james harden earthquake california earthquake california roy orbison the third man 2012 nfl draft order mohamed sanu