Christian's Teacher Must Have Magical Powers
Friday, January 29, 2010 at 10:08PM Our house was full of noise this afternoon. And a lot of loud children. And kids who yelled and hollered. And they were noisy, too.
They had fun. It was a party after all.
I basically took care of the cake, and Mike did everything else, including clean the toilet. He is a better man than you all can know. I am not saying this to be charmingly self-deprecating...I was really not that, um, enthusiastic about a houseful of children right after school on a Friday afternoon. Mike did everything that needed to be done so that Christian could have a good time at his party.
I want to share my cake experience quickly. At first things were going well. I had the bottom cake made, which was just a 9 x 13 that I transformed into a body of water with some colored frosting. I had the body of the dinosaur placed on the 9 x 13 and frosted. I just needed to add the neck and head of my brontosaurus and place it so that it was eating leaves off of my foliagey cupcakes.
This did not look good. I was worried that I was going to end up with what looked like the tail end of the dinosaur and a dino poop. A very big dino poop.
I tried and tried to make the first neck/head work, but I ended up dropping (no pun intended) it down the disposal. I had a tiny bit of Rice Krispie treats left and made a much shorter neck and head. Then I put a skewer through the long part and was able to stick in down into my cake. It worked! I was so relieved. It didn't end up like the one in my imagination, but it was all right.
Now, since this blog isn't ALL about me (it isn't, is it?) I'll get back to Christian's party.
The first thing we did was serve hot chocolate. Smart, right? No wonder they were such maniacs. Actually, half of them didn't even drink it. But it did get them to sit at the table for a few minutes before the mayhem officially began.
Mike showed them a book that he found, which has life-size parts of dinosaurs in it. (Pictures, I mean. Not actual dino parts. Just to clarify.) It was pretty neat.
There are things like life-size teeth in the book (and claws, and heads of smaller dinos, and poo-poo, too)...
Mike had set up a game of bowling (soda cans with construction paper, and a home-made boulder/bowling ball, which they enjoyed.
We also had a pinata (I'm too lazy to figure out the little symbol over the "n" there...I know it's supposed to be there, though. Add it in your head, please.)...
It was so funny to watch them try to bust that thing. They hit it pretty hard, but it was a sturdy little dino.
This guy took his arms way back and then swang with all his might. He hit the wall, and almost hit Mike.
Michaela gave it a solid whack, but still no candy.
The kids wanted Mike to have a turn, and they all crowded in the living room so they could watch him swing. Finally there was success!
And of course, there was cake.
The kids seemed to have fun and Christian loved having people here. He also opened his presents just before we ate dinner and was so happy with everything; he has some very generous friends.
Three guesses what Christian really likes to do these days.
And now I have to decide if I'm going to wash some laundry and then some dishes by hand (our dishwasher, the new one, is being weird in the same way as that other one...sounds fishy to me). The laundry I don't have to do by hand. That I have a machine for.
Sometime tonight I need to figure out a good way to let my husband know how much I appreciate him as well. He did an amazing job with pre-party stuff and crowd control (also known as yelling-louder-than-the-crowd-in-order-to-get-their-attention-and-move-them-to-the-next-thing), and he accomplished this on a small amount of sleep last night. If I had an award, I would give him one.
Something like this...
Oh, he deserves so much more.
Christian
Reader Comments (5)
My husband is usually very helpful, but he loathes bday parties, so I get no help there.
Your cake looks great!
fun times! I like how the cake turned out, I wouldnt have pulled it off as well. YAY Mike, nice award by the way, I giggled when I added the ~ over pinata...I dont know how to do that either!
The cake turned out great, but when I opened the page and saw the first picture I was pretty sure you had a great candidate for Cake Wrecks!
I'm glad they all had fun. Cheers to Mike the Birthday Party Master. :)
The cake turned out great! I was afraid of that neck situation, when you first told me your plans. The first picture is exactly what I had imagined might happen, but you salvaged it beautifully. Congrats! I know you put a lot of work into it. I'm so glad Christian had a super birthday!
That looks like a really fun party! Harper's birthday is at the end of the month. I'm having a hard time thinking of a theme (we did rock star last year). Any suggestions?