Recipe for a good party?

Little Monster turns three this week. It seems like time is passing faster than it should. It isn't fair. Between he and his sister, I'm going insane trying to keep up. Butterball can sit up, and she's rolling over and around and over to get to thing she wants, mere seconds from crawling.



We had his birthday party early because the kids and I are planning a trip home for November. I was stressing it a bit. I invited what I thought were a few too many people (the E-vite said 32 people were coming). The house was trashed, its normal state these days, no matter how much I don't want to admit it. I was exhausted from being up all night most nights nursing a hungry little girl. I didn't exactly know when I was going to find the time to get everything done for the party.



Not the Momma's plan was to set the party up in the garage. Mine was for the front yard. I let Not the Momma have his way. It was a good decision. (I refuse to admit he was right. ;) -- I just won't.) After I thought about it, if it was going to be foggy, then it was going to be better if we had a place to warm up, and if it was sunny our horde of babies was going to need a shady place to hang out. I had spent quite a few days thinking about what to serve for food and cake.



I ended up doing everything very simple. We hung some streamers, NTM grilled some hot dogs, and bought some pre-made salads.



For days before the party, Little Monster knew something was going on. We had invited the Fire Truck to come out, but hadn't told him about it, but he knew that his friends were going to come over, there was going to be a bouncy house, and he was going to get a fire truck cake and sprite. What else could he want, right? The night before the poor kid didn't sleep more than an hour at a time. The morning of the party, I brought him with me to pick up the cake. Despite his exhaustion from lack of sleep, he still buzzed around the grocery store like a free electron. He buzzed from the front of the grocery cart, to my leg, to the shelves. The wait at the bakery nearly killed the poor kid.



When the bouncy house showed up, his energy went through the roof. I half expected him to vibrate through the walls of the house, anticipating the fun he was going to have.



And then it began. His friends showed up. They bounced and bounced and bounced. And I kicked everyone out and made them eat some lunch.



As they were finishing up eating, the fire truck arrived. The look on Little Monster's face was priceless. He was a little big confused. And when they began to back the truck into our driveway, we had to restrain him from running into the truck barefoot.

He was so excited to 'drive' the truck and push buttons! All in all the party was a success. I think it was mostly because I didn't try to plan much. We made the kids stop jumping to eat, and let them do whatever the rest of the time. They even had a 'fire' in the playhouse while the truck was here!