THE Birthday

Last week was D's fourth birthday and I am now finally getting around to writing about it. When planning for the party, I admit some minor depression and 'homesickness' for my previous place of living. I couldn't help but thinking about who we could have invited if. . .

During a brainstorming session, I happened upon the brilliant idea of inviting D's primary class. True, I didn't know any of the kids in his class. True, I didn't know any of the parents of the kids in his class. True, I still can't remember his primary teacher's name. I wasn't about to let that stop me. On the Sunday before his Bday, I asked D's primary teacher (what is her name?) for a list of the kids in his class. Fortunately two of the four kids were in class! YEA! I was standing there when the parents dropped the kids off so I also knew who the parents were! DOUBLE YEA!! Now I had to work up the courage to talk to these complete strangers. Long story short, I talked to said strangers and they were actually nice. They didn't kick me in the shin and run away or anything!

During the week we made party invites and delivered them to the homes of all four primary friends and one other friend who is just young enough to still be in nursery and someone from Roy's work who invited us to his daughter's bday party last summer when D and I were visiting Roy (pre-K). Wahoo, 6 friends and untold siblings. After all it is quantity we are shooting for, right?

D wanted a firetruck birthday cake so this translates into a firetruck birthday party. Luckily, there is a park in town that was built by a fire chief in memory of his daughter (she drowned). Not lucky that this poor family lost a daughter but lucky he was a fire chief and built a park that has a FIRETRUCK PLAY STRUCTURE! How perfect to fit into the firetruck theme and I don't have to do anything extra! Except of course make a firetruck birthday cake.

Okay, so clearly I'm no Martha Stewart, but the cake was received well.

So, anyway. We met at the park. I had already heard from two parents saying they wouldn't be able to make it. *sigh* When we arrived there were no friends waiting for us. Mind you, I had planned it this way and arrived early, but still. . . After a couple of minutes the first of the crowd arrived. Yea, the rush was sure to come. . . any second now. . . . .

Maybe now . . . . .

um.

Finally, another friend arrived with a sister! Yes! (Oh, did I mention that ALL the kids in D's primary class are girls?) We offically have three guests! The count did make it up to four, sort of. A 9 year old sister came after school got out. This was great news for me because she just happened to love little one-year-old-wiggly-pain-in-the-neck-when-you're-trying-to-take-pictures-and-cut-cake-and, well you get the idea.The kids played at the park, ate cake and ice cream, played at the park some more, ran around while I tried to discuss fire safety, played at the park, opened presents and played at the park. All in all a very rewarding experience.
And the treat bags you ask? Well, two days before the party was to take place we went to our local fire department and asked if they had anything they gave out to kids for such events. We came away with plastic fireman hats, bags, badge stickers, a coloring book and a fire saftey ribbon. I bought some red and white helium filled balloons and sent each child home with one. Oh, and a couple of Smarties to help them remember to be smart around fire. (Am I clever or what?!)
Really, everyone had fun and we got to make some new friends. A successful party.


BTW we did a family party at home that night. D wanted a train cake. He got a train cake but no train playground, train hats, train napkins, etc. Just a cake and the Happy Birthday song.Before you get too excited about the two cake thing. The train cake came from a molded cupcake pan like this. It was decorated with left over frosting and M&M's from the fire truck cake.
We had dinner, put candles on the engine, sang Happy Birthday, blew out the candles, opened some presents, went to bed. Everyone was soo tired and crabby we didn't even eat any cake. Plus D & K were still coming down off the sugar-high from the last party.