Birthday Party Recap

I'm finally getting around to posting about Buggy's "Star Wars" birthday party. I haven't yet managed to get most of the pictures from the day uploaded on my computer, but the photo shown here pretty much sums it up. It was fairly chaotic. All of the good pictures will come in a later post so rather than rehash the event in detail here, I would like to record for my own future reference (and hopefully for my readers amusement) a few things (good and bad) that I learned from this party planning experience.

• Light sabers (made from pool noodles and shiny silver and black duct tape) + Boys of all ages = the hit of the party!
• If you are planning other activities, do them before passing out the light sabers. Once they are distributed, all other structure goes out the window.
• A guest list of 20 (mostly boys, aged 3-7) is too many. I knew this already, but factoring in that it was summer, and many wouldn't come, I thought we'd be okay. Yeah, I now know why the recommendation is to keep the amount of kids equal to the age of the birthday kid. When it comes to boys, I kind of think that in my world the birthday kid will be 5 forever.
• 80 degree heat in Seattle makes for a hot backyard. 80 degrees also turns a "Yoda Soda" into "sticky green mess".
• 1 standard cake mix will yield roughly 60 miniature cupcakes. That is A LOT of cupcakes.
• Candles don't stay lit when there is a breeze. So don't even bother trying. The kids are more concerned about eating the cupcakes than they are about blowing out the candles anyway.
• Coloring pages...Also not a great idea when there is a breeze.
• Last but not least....When it all turns into chaos, roll with it. If they are having fun that is all that matters anyway. Besides, are they really going to remember that game of "Pin the lightsaber on Yoda"? Probably not.

In the end, I think the guests all had fun, and I know that Buggy did. And we are officially done with birthdays for the year...except for mine I guess, in December. But that doesn't count. ;)