Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Birthdays!

First of all I must say I'm sorry for taking so long to blog, January tired me all out! You see January is a major Birthday month for our Family! First we have Uncle Chris' on the 2nd, Aunt Staci on the 5th, Uncle Michael's on the 9th, Grandpa Art's on the 23rd, Sara's on the 28th, finally little Blake's on the 30th. I think I gained 5 pounds this month due to all the cake we ate! It turned out to be a very busy (and expensive) month.

Sara's Birthday end up lasting three days this year! She had not one but THREE birthday cakes. We first celebrated with Matt's Family, then had a combine birthday celebration for Sara and Blake with my family, and then a friends pary!

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This year was the first time Sara had a birthday party with friends. She turned 5 (going on 12), and I had such a hard time last year trying to decide whether or not to give her a party when she turn 4, I decided that she was a little young and that she didn't need a bunch of gifts. Plus once you start you can't stop right? Then all her little friends that turned 4 later that year all had parties. I felt like a horrible mother not giving my daughter a party. However after this years party I am so WAY glad I waited! It was a little stressful for me. I am tired just looking at the pictures again. For Sara's friends birthday party we ended up making wands and crowns, playing games and then opening presents and eating ice cream.

The one mistake I made was opening gifts too early! They then wanted to play with all the gifts and didn't want to play the rest of the games. The 9 girls were bouncing off the wall the entire time! I don't know how school teachers do it! They should write a book on how to throw your first birthday party, and what to expect, and what order to do things in, and what time of the day is the best time to have it! What I should have done was just called my friend Brittany I think she is the worlds greatest mom as it is and the birthday party that she threw her little girl last year, was absolutly incredible. I did have fun watching Sara with her friends, I just think I wasn't quite prepared for the intensity of it all. There was so much planning involved for a 5 yrs old party! So what is the rule with Boys, when do they have to start having parties? Do all kids have birthday parties every year? If so does it make me the worlds worst mom to not want to throw my kids birthday parties every year!

4 comments:

emily said...

birthdays!! fun fun!! Happy Birthday to all!! Glad to see you back in the blogosphere!

brittany said...

i am so glad you finally updated your blog!!!! happy birthday sara, what a cute girl you have.

Anonymous said...

Hey Jess! OK...so here are my thoughts on parties. I love planning a themed party, but it's a lot of work and expensive, so I do one every OTHER year, and they get to invite as many kids as years old they are. On the off years, I told them they can have one friend and do whatever they want. This year the twins wanted a "late"over. It was great for them, and way less stressful for me. Check out birthdaypartyideas.com. They have the BEST ideas...aside from our friend Brittany! Looks like Sarah had a BLAST! She is so beautiful! Amy

Jennalee said...

I have to say I wish I would have done it your way!!! when we left "Home" we had a party for Gab because it was going to be the "last" with those friends, and then when we got here we did it because we wanted to have a get together with our new friends...from there it has spiralled out of control with birthday parties with un numbered amounts of friends and MAJOR stress for the mama...UNTIL this year, we start our Birthday year out in February with my little Valentine girlies...this year granny came and that WAS the party...it took QUITE a bit of convincing that it was ok to not have the whole neighborhood over, and that it would be ok...it was ...though I have to keep reminding them how great a PARTY it was to have granny for both little girls b-days this year(incidentally I had to do a little convincing myself that I too was not a bad mommy for "skipping" the parties this year)...luckily we will be AT granny's for Zack's b-day because he's sold on the having granny for birthdays this year and really Meg doesn't care so she can party with me for mine...From here I think we'll do the 'big' ones...5 is good, 8, 12, 16...other friends do things on the "off" years with a small group of friends so it is not necessarily a "party" party...I've convinced myself in the past, that as a stay at home mommy--'what else do I have to do?'---with the four now, that is a SILLY question! so, there is my two cents :) (or more...this is kind long)