Birthday Party

Last weekend we celebrated the girls' birthdays by inviting a few (5) of their friends over for a party. This was the first time Doug and I threw a friends party for the girls and I think things turned out rather well. With relatively few tears and much loud laughter and general pandemonium I think the children had fun as well.

We began the day by decorating the house. Doug did the balloons and I did the streamers and cake. Earlier this year my mom gave me the book of cake ideas she used for our birthdays as kids. I chose the carousel cake, I think it turned out rather well.

We chose animals as the theme for our party, and started out the party by playing animal charades. It was pretty cute to see seven little kids act like all sorts of animals. Earlier this week Eloise told Doug that her favorite animal was a snake. Apparently she really meant it because no matter which animal she was told to act out she would pretend to be a snake.

Charades was followed by the making of lion masks. This had the unfortunate consequence of ending in roaring contests. Doug won.

After masks the kids all made their own pizza. We used english muffins as the base and had tomato sauce, pepperoni, and cheese for toppings. The kids had fun making their own pizzas, but had even more fun eating the toppings, especially the pepperoni.

Lunch was followed by cake and ice cream, then presents. After that we had a dance party until the parents arrived to pick the children up.

Lessons learned:
Make sure you have enough space for the number of children at the party. Seven kids was just right for our small house. Any more and there would have been chaos.

Parties aren't as hard as I thought they would be.

The easiest cake in the book is still hard.