We had a birthday party for Oliver this Saturday and frankly it was a bust. In the cold harsh light of reality the truth is I am not a great party planner. I love to go to parties, I appreciate creative touches and decorative flourishes, I love when every detail is thought of and carried out with great style. But, man, that is just not my strong suit. And I'm (learning to be) OK with that.
So, we planned to have a combined birthday party with Oliver's buddy Lucas at the firehouse. It sounded like an awesome idea because (I thought) Ollie loves fire trucks and the firemen said that we could have the party there, in a training room at the firehouse. The firehouse even had a friendly Dalmatian dog, Angus. Could you do any better than that for a little boys' birthday party?!?! I was totally psyched.
The first hitch was when Elliot got sick. We had to postpone the party but our friends decided to go ahead and do their own family birthday party for Lucas, so they didn't even come to this party. We changed the date AND the time and a fair number of our guests didn't realize the change in time on the second invitation and missed the party. Oliver was totally freaked out by the fire trucks and the fireman who came in to show the kids that firemen weren't scary. Oliver wasn't convinced as you can see from the pictures below. He had his hands on his ears the whole time because he was scared that they were going to turn on the siren.
He wouldn't go in to check out the trucks with the other kids because he said that he was "too little, too tiny." Instead he played with TOY fire trucks and drew pictures on the dry erase board. Fun times. I didn't plan any party games because I thought the kids would be so swept up in the excitement of seeing the trucks and meeting the firemen. Oh, well. At other parties it seems like the grown-ups make the kids stop playing so that they can participate in organized games that are never quite as fun as the free-for-all that the kids were enjoying on their own. I didn't want to do that but in retrospect I should have had a few more games or activities. Oh well. I guess this might have been an improvement over last year's birthday celebration.
The good thing is that despite not being very organized I think that generally the kids had a fun time. I sure love this little guy!
3 comments:
How fun they let kids' have parties at the firehouse. I had never heard of that before!
Anna,
Stop stressing, the party was NOT a bust, the kids had a blast. I realize poor Ollie didn't like the trucks but all the other kids were all over it. You had great food and the kids had fun with the trucks and the white board. Alexander had a great time and so did I.
Hey, I thought it was great. I am all for relaxing, enjoyable parties. No need to get stressed over a party- they will have a lot more!
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