The Nest

Planning a Birthday Party

Posted Tuesday, June 10, 2008 10:09 AM

Jax turns 2 next month and I've been thinking of what to plan for him.  Last year Andy laughed at me because I got myself all stressed out about his first birthday.  Some people make such a big deal out of their kid's birthday's and go all out when most of the time it really isn't worth the effort. 

Last year instead of throwing a theme party (I'm now in the camp of waiting 'til Jax is old enough to really like something to throw a theme party), I printed out different pictures from his first year, made captions to put on the back and hung them up around our deck.  Then my parents helped blow up balloons and they were placed all over outside and we filled his dinosaur pool up.  The day before I made a bunch of cupcakes and then in the morning Andy put frosting on them and we laid them out on a pan to form a caterpillar with a giant 1 candle.  Overall it went really well.  The only other kid there was my girlfriend's son who is 6 months older than Jax.  I felt bad because they're from out of town and he was on and off again crabby.  :(  

This year we decided to have the birthday party at my parent's house.  Mostly because the weekend of Jax's actual birthday some relatvies have other things going on.  That and the weekend following his birthday is the annual street fair.  I love the street fair and I really want to get some of Jax's birthday presents from the vendors.  Last year there was a lady there who does these funky monster paintings that Andy & I thought were cool.  Another reason is that I felt if we threw the party at my parent's house, my grandpa would be more likely to come.  (In a nutshell, he's in the middle of getting a divorce from his crazy wife whose dumber than a box of rocks and then there's other family issues)  

This year I wanted to have a "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" themed party but  couldn't really find anything.  Usually I'm totally into the DIY thing, but on Sunday night I just couldn't motivate myself enough to do much else besides sit and stare at my computer screen.  It probably didn't help that I had a huge headache and was all crafted out.  So I took the easy way out and bought some simple bday invitations yesterday and they'll be going out in the mail today.  For the party we'll get a party sub from Subway, a bunch of balloons, probably fill up my little brother's old pool and get a big birthday cake. 

On a completely unrelated note, storytime at the library begins at 10.  It's 9:30 and I don't feel very good.  I still want to bring Jax but don't really want to sit there and feel like I'm going to roll over and die.  So I think we'll just have to wait 'til next week.