Birthday

Our little B will be 8 on Sunday. She's getting so grown-up, so helpful and kind of like a little friend to me. A delightful companion!

I have the smell of birthday cake in the house! B's party is tonight, dinnertime, and even though she said she didn't want a cake at first, here I am baking our traditional Bundt cake. From a mix. It's too delicious and easy. She and I filled her pinata after her bedtime last night, after a long Wal-Mart trip to get her party stuff. Her big present from us was a new CD player. The one on her alarm clock was just terrible. Such a great idea, though, to have a little cd player/clock combo. I just went too cheap, and it showed. But now she can jam in her room. To Charlotte Church? or her Disney Jams Mania 3 CD. (I have her musically protected a bit!) Or we can take it to the party, like we are planning.

The party is at a park tonight for dinner. I think including adults, we'll have more then 25 people there. So I am ordering the pizza this afternoon, and hoping for the best. I hope I can estimate right on that. Let's see---pizza, cake, pinata, treat bags (to collect candy), tablecloth, crown-making kit (so everyone can make a crown), plates and napkins, sodas, cups, popcicles. The Popcicles are instead of ice cream---I hope I can keep them cold enough. She wanted some Skittles. She wanted a birthday pin. I let her get those things.

I think the party will be simple! I won't have to clean up the house before or after the party! The dogs will not jump on the guests. (But they are pretty good dogs, anyway.) I didn't go too crazy on treat bag stuff (which is a big pet peeve of mine----it's so expensive to fill them, really, and it's mostly little junk things!). The pinata candy and the crown you can take home from the party, that's your treat.

Still to do today:
Buy little cupcakes for school "party"
Buy Subway lunch for B
eat lunch with her
locate a rope for the pinata to hang from
order the pizza
get the pizza (I think L can get it on his way home from work and bring it to the park?)
pack stuff into boxes to carry
transport stuff to the park
Have a party!

I usually make a "schedule" something like this:
(2 hour party)
0:00 arrival---greetings---making crowns?
0:30 eating pizza, running around the park
1:00 cake and popcicles
1:15 presents
1:30 pinata
1:45 to end running around the park some more

I think this will basically work for us. I plan on taking many pictures with her friends. I have 5 friends from school rsvp, plus a couple more girls from her softball team and a couple more friends as well. I'm happy so many can come. The whole pizza thing I am worrying about in case we have a bunch of non-rsvp-ers. But it'll be okay. They can go home and eat again if I don't have enough!

I have often thought I could be a kids party planner. If I could spend other people's money, I could really throw a party! I can wrangle children and direct them. I can think of cool themes and stuff to do at a party. (Of course I have the whole Internet at my disposal for ideas!) This party of B's is coming together nicely, and it's mostly her ideas. Nothing really major as far as themes, though. She's getting where she wants to have stuff girlie, but not too much so. She was thinking if she has an invitation that was too girlie, the boys wouldn't come. She wanted that pinata!