As I sit here making Harry Potter wands and pinning recipes for cauldron cakes, I can’t help but think, what the heck am I doing? Am I seriously debating whether I should make chocolate pretzel cauldron handles or one big one made from melted chocolate? What has happened to my life, and who has this kind of time?
Thank you Pinterest, mom bloggers and over-sharing facebookers for making us all flat out insane, thinking we need to fit Hollywood Party Planner into our already stretched to the max list of titles we give ourselves. It always seems like a great idea at first, in the infancy of your Pinterest board, when you see all the cute Mickey Mouse deserts, or the fun mustache décor, but then when it is down to the wire and you have to make all this stuff, you curse it all and swear you’ll never have another party.
If you have a husband like mine who loves hosting parties, that’s never going to happen, so I trudge on and continue to craft.
But seriously, Mr. Man is turning one next week, one, and I am wedging party prep in to my day wherever I can. But half the time I think it is completely ridiculous. He isn’t going to remember any of it!
When Little Miss turned one, we threw a big party and invited about 70 people. I was completely stressed out. I made a ton of cupcakes with little chocolate wafer ears and my parents helped me create Mickey Mouse Oreos as favors. We also had little Mickey and friends plushes for the kids to take home. Well in the end several people cancelled at the last minute, my husband forgot to light the Sternos so the food was cold and we had enough leftover cupcakes to feed an elementary school. Thankfully Little Miss seemed to enjoy the day, but I swore, no 2nd birthday party!
I almost kept myself in check for her second. We only invited close family over to our house where we had a Tangled themed party. It was nice and low key with the exception of my hand painted paper (bag) lanterns, individual Jello cups with orange slice boats with printed sails, and specially purchased braided rolls to look like Rapunzel’s hair.
The 3rd birthday was a crazy Frozen party with a million kids, as many of my friends have kids now. This time I made I beanbag toss game, marshmallow snow man building, and pin the carrot on Olaf (thanks to my Dad). I also baked cupcakes, made snow wands, snack mix and wrapped Frozen books as favors. Oh yeah, and we bought a bounce house. It’s an investment.
The Frozen party was a huge hit and Little Miss loved every second of it, but I just about killed myself. Mr. Man was only three months old at the time, and here I was jamming the million Frozen balloons that my husband ordered into my car. (Note: The man means well, but he really tends to go overboard)
So now I am in the crunch time of planning Mr. Man’s Harry Potter party. My husband had to have this theme because he referred to our son as Voldemort when he was in my belly because we couldn’t come up with a name, and that dark wizard was know as “the one who shall not be named.” It’s an ongoing thing. There’s a Dumbledore quote on his wall.
Anywho, we just finished up with Christmas, this is a busy time of year for my husband at work and I am starting grad school this week, but I am in full party planning mode, not that Mr. Man seems to notice. Little Miss is excited, but she is excited about a trip to the grocery store so it might not be saying much.
I’ve fallen into the trap. I am a stay-at-home mom and thus feel like I have tons of time to come up with all these party details. It will be fun! But I’m past the fun part and it is now frantic last minute stress. But in the end, I’ll get the wands done, I’ll plan out all the activities and the kids will all have a great time. Mr. Man won’t have a clue what is going on, but there will be a cake for him to destroy and rub through his hair and he can look at the pictures in the future and (hopefully) realize how much his parents care about him.
And as for next year? We’re ordering pizza and watching a movie on the couch. And Carvel can take care of the cake.
Thank you Pinterest, mom bloggers and over-sharing facebookers for making us all flat out insane, thinking we need to fit Hollywood Party Planner into our already stretched to the max list of titles we give ourselves. It always seems like a great idea at first, in the infancy of your Pinterest board, when you see all the cute Mickey Mouse deserts, or the fun mustache décor, but then when it is down to the wire and you have to make all this stuff, you curse it all and swear you’ll never have another party.
If you have a husband like mine who loves hosting parties, that’s never going to happen, so I trudge on and continue to craft.
But seriously, Mr. Man is turning one next week, one, and I am wedging party prep in to my day wherever I can. But half the time I think it is completely ridiculous. He isn’t going to remember any of it!
When Little Miss turned one, we threw a big party and invited about 70 people. I was completely stressed out. I made a ton of cupcakes with little chocolate wafer ears and my parents helped me create Mickey Mouse Oreos as favors. We also had little Mickey and friends plushes for the kids to take home. Well in the end several people cancelled at the last minute, my husband forgot to light the Sternos so the food was cold and we had enough leftover cupcakes to feed an elementary school. Thankfully Little Miss seemed to enjoy the day, but I swore, no 2nd birthday party!
I almost kept myself in check for her second. We only invited close family over to our house where we had a Tangled themed party. It was nice and low key with the exception of my hand painted paper (bag) lanterns, individual Jello cups with orange slice boats with printed sails, and specially purchased braided rolls to look like Rapunzel’s hair.
The 3rd birthday was a crazy Frozen party with a million kids, as many of my friends have kids now. This time I made I beanbag toss game, marshmallow snow man building, and pin the carrot on Olaf (thanks to my Dad). I also baked cupcakes, made snow wands, snack mix and wrapped Frozen books as favors. Oh yeah, and we bought a bounce house. It’s an investment.
The Frozen party was a huge hit and Little Miss loved every second of it, but I just about killed myself. Mr. Man was only three months old at the time, and here I was jamming the million Frozen balloons that my husband ordered into my car. (Note: The man means well, but he really tends to go overboard)
So now I am in the crunch time of planning Mr. Man’s Harry Potter party. My husband had to have this theme because he referred to our son as Voldemort when he was in my belly because we couldn’t come up with a name, and that dark wizard was know as “the one who shall not be named.” It’s an ongoing thing. There’s a Dumbledore quote on his wall.
Anywho, we just finished up with Christmas, this is a busy time of year for my husband at work and I am starting grad school this week, but I am in full party planning mode, not that Mr. Man seems to notice. Little Miss is excited, but she is excited about a trip to the grocery store so it might not be saying much.
I’ve fallen into the trap. I am a stay-at-home mom and thus feel like I have tons of time to come up with all these party details. It will be fun! But I’m past the fun part and it is now frantic last minute stress. But in the end, I’ll get the wands done, I’ll plan out all the activities and the kids will all have a great time. Mr. Man won’t have a clue what is going on, but there will be a cake for him to destroy and rub through his hair and he can look at the pictures in the future and (hopefully) realize how much his parents care about him.
And as for next year? We’re ordering pizza and watching a movie on the couch. And Carvel can take care of the cake.