And then 7! And, most recently, 8! In the spirit of writing about multiple birthday parties in one post, as I did with
Daphne's 2nd and 3rd birthdays, I thought I'd catch up on Elias's 6th and 7th birthday parties before he turned 8 but, alas, here I am finally getting around to this almost a full week later.
Without further delay, for Elias's 6th birthday party, like
his 5th, we again celebrated at home, with most of the party in the back yard, and a bouncy house in the front. That year, Elias requested a Frozen-themed party, less princess-focused, more Olaf-centric. It was an interesting party to plan, really feeling the gender divide for the first time since becoming a parent. If you know me, or follow me on social media, you know I have a bit of a pet peeve for things like suggesting Frozen is a girl's movie or a "girly" theme for a party. Nothing wrong with "girly"; I just wish it were a more valid option for boys, even in so-called progressive Bay Area. Despite this pet peeve, even I found myself clarifying the general Frozen theme, explaining, almost apologetically, that it was less princess, more Olaf, as if I needed to justify the choice for a boy's birthday party. So what if he wanted a princess theme for his party, you know?
Anyway, stepping off of my soap box now, the party was really fun to plan and, in that delightful, though financially stressful, slice of time when Daphne was in part-time daycare but I wasn't yet working (and my business was all but dying a slow death), I did a lot myself. I even baked a cake AND cupcakes for this particular party. It was relatively Pinterest-worthy, if I do say so myself. First, that cake (yes, I fashioned Olaf and his hot tub buddy using fondant):
The goody bags:
Complete with snowman snack mix (pretzel sticks, mini marshmallows, candy corn, edible googley eyes):
Jumping to the festivities, here's little sister in the red glow of the bouncy house:
And here's a picture of Elias with Neal, opening gifts on his actual birthday, which was the day before (check out his missing two front teeth!):
As well as the traditional, day-of trip to Fenton's with Grandma:
For his 7th birthday party last year, he requested a Pokemon-themed party, which we again threw at home, with bouncer. The bouncy house was less effective in keeping kids
out of the house so you can probably guess where we had this year's party (hint:
not at home). Backing up a bit, though, we had just returned from our trip to Virginia (for my nephew's high school graduation), with a detour to Boston on the way home. So while his actual birthday was on a Sunday last year, there was no way I was having a party that day, having arrived very early that morning. But, we did go to Fenton's that evening, as is tradition, though a little jetlagged, before heading back to work, preschool, and summer camp the next day.
Little sis coloring:
Despite being several months into my full-time day-job, I managed to do quite a bit for this party (which, in hindsight, makes me feel kind of guilty about how little I did this year, but more on that in a bit). For the Pokemon-themed celebration, I created Pokemon energy drinks:
Pokeball snack trays and pizzas:
And modified a sheet cake from Lucky supermarket that used, if I remember correctly, a Phineas & Ferb design as the base, to which I added Pokemon figurines, etc.:
We played a "catch Charizard" version of Pin the Tail:
This year, by comparison, was a little harder to plan because of the less character-driven theme request. Specifically, Elias asked for a
Green Day party. He's pretty into music and guitar-playing these days, having taken both group and private lessons all school year. So I went with the more general music/guitar/rock star theme, adding a Green Day twist mostly in terms of colors.
We also decided to have this year's party at a park. Elias is new to this school this year (more on that later) and wanted to invite everyone in the class. I feel like it's taken him the entire year to begin to settle in, find his solid few buddies, etc. So I didn't necessarily want to limit him, and had a handful of friends outside of school we wanted to invite as well. I worried we'd have a group of 30 kids in the house! In the end, it was a fairly manageable group, but just in case, we opted for the park instead of home.
The only "activity" I planned was this "mod your guitar" station that pretty much nobody used. Which is fine. The kids were entertained by the park/playground and some toy guns another kid brought (I thought they were going to be problematic, but it all worked out fine).
Elias wanted to barbecue hot dogs and hamburgers so we did (thanks Neal for basically manning the grill the entire time)! I once again modified a Lucky supermarket sheet cake design to go with the theme, using two shades of green and black for the frosting, adding a music note wrap around the sides, and adding my own improvised guitar topper by laminating the die-cut card stock guitar from one of the extra goody bags.
It worked pretty well!
I made "edible drum sticks" for the goody bags and green/red/black sprinkled
confetti cookies for anyone who didn't want cake (realistically, what ends up happening when I do this is the kids want cake
and a cookie ... sorry parents!).
In addition to the usual juice boxes, soda, and water, I made this
white wine sangria I'd been wanting to try (but needed a larger group than myself and Neal to drink it all!). It was a big hit but looked deceptively kid-friendly (only one kid sampled it as far as I know).
So challenging to get one good picture of Elias, preferably smiling, in front of his cake!
Same goes for a picture with his two good buddies, one from his old school, one from the new school.
Of course, the birthday shenanigans wouldn't be complete without a trip, day-of, to Fenton's!
It's weird writing about multiple birthdays in one post - the similarities between them in terms of how we celebrate are striking. I guess that's the definition of tradition. But it also feels like things are happening so quickly they're really blurring together. As I mentioned in Daphne's birthday wrap-up, the second event to accelerate time (the first being the addition of a second kid to the mix!) has been my full-time, outside-the-home day job (from my perspective, at least). There are a lot of perks to working, money being the most obvious, but nothing replaces flexibility and time with kids, especially when they're little.
The transition has not been an easy one for any of us, and I underestimated in particular how challenging it might be for Elias. We switched schools partly (though not totally) because of his old school's insufficient after-care options, but the transition to a new school was not without its own, new challenges. It's a smaller school where I've witnessed way more teasing (dare I use the b-word?). I felt really overwhelmed as a parent at several points during this school year and who knows if my job had anything to do with any of it (or, vice versa, if my not working would help any of it). But at the end of the year, I realized the flip-side of that coin is that Elias overcame so much. It was really a remarkable year of growth for him, both academically and socially, and yeah, I'm pretty proud. But this work/family grind wears me down and I'm pretty committed to finding a better way forward. So my goal is, by his 9th birthday, to do less reflecting on life events from 2 to 3 years prior. You know?
