Birthday Party

So, LOML's birthday party was on Saturday. It was held at my uncle's house. Like last year.

This year, it was game themed. We had all sorts of games to play. Checkers, Connect Four, Twister, Clue, cards, Trouble, etc...

The kids seemed to have a blast. They did actually play most of the games. Their favorites, however, were Twister, PoKeNo and oddly enough, Hide N Go Seek!

I love that they went old skool!

When they all got there, they were running around for a bit and then settled down and played some games. After a while, we all had something to eat (brownies, cupcakes, cheese puffs, chips and dip and punch) and then she opened her presents.

The kid got $124! That's more cash than I EVER carry! LOL! I asked her for a loan but she said no. I tried to convince her that she owed me $50 but she didn't bite.

Oh, well. I tried.

She also got a kite, some homemade cookies, a gift card to Barnes & Noble (one of her FAVORITE stores), a gift card to Sonic, 2 teddy bears, a pair of toe socks, a puzzle, some make-up and HSM3. I gave her one of the teddy bears, the movie Ever After and an I.O.U. for a fancy watch of her choice.

The girl racked up!

After presents, we got to the REAL fun of the party.

The scavenger hunt!

The prize for the first person to get all the clues was a $10 gift card to Wal-Mart. The kids were more excited about that than all the sugar they were allowed to consume!

I actually had to come up with 11 rhyming clues AND I had to make sure that the kids weren't all going to the same clue at the same time. That's more difficult than it sounds, let me tell you.

I handed out the first clue to each kid and they were off.

I also try to make them actually think about their clue. I don't tell them EXACTLY where to go. They have to actually figure it out for themselves.

Let me tell you, the girls were all over the clues. They had them figured out like it was nothing. The boys, however, needed LOTS of help!

In the end, one of LOML's good friends was the winner. I was so impressed because she didn't need ANY help from any adults on the clues. She did it entirely all by herself.

Here's a few pics from the party.




Posing for the camera.

The kids playing games.

LOML and a boy from her class (that turned BRIGHT RED when she opened his present which was one of the teddy bears! It was soooooo funny). She told me later that he likes her.....

.....which this boy doesn't like too much. This is LOML's "boyfriend" of almost 2 years. Yep, 2 years. He laid claim on her the first day she walked in their second grade classroom and hasn't let go of her since. He is the sweetest little boy EVER. He gives her sweet presents and actually TALKS to her when he sees her.

Here's two of the kids playing Twister.

More Twister pics.

Here's a pic of the kids getting a clue during the scavenger hunt.

They were also into climbing all the trees all over the property.

All in all, a good time was had by all.

I can't wait til next year!

Later,

Mama Dawg

Party Pics 2

One of the party guests hunting for a clue

The Mad Hatter telling them the story of Alice in Wonderland (at least up until the Mad Tea Party part)
A bee decided to join us for a petit four.
Here's light of my life telling the Mad Hatter a joke for her next clue.
Here's the Mad Hatter's dog helping herself to a drink of punch.

Later,

Mama Dawg

Party Pictures

Here's all the Mad Hatter Hats my mom painted. Isn't she great?

Here's a sample of the mini cupcakes.

Here are the goody boxes. So colorful!

Here's the punch.

One of the clues was tied to this tree where my stuffed Cheshire Cat was lounging around.

More pics in next post.

Mad Tea Birthday Party

Light of my life turned 8 in March. Due to her actual birthday falling right in the middle of spring break, I decided to have her birthday party the weekend after Spring Break was over. It was about 11 days after her actual birthday, but she was cool with it.

About July or so of last year, I found a great idea for her birthday party. We would have a Mad Tea Party. She loves all things Disney (chip off the old block) and she likes the movie Alice in Wonderland.

I thought it would be a blast to have mini tea cups and little finger foods and play croquet (except with regular mallets instead of flamingos).

I started doing some research on the 'net (I love the Internet, have I ever told you that?) and found lots of good ideas.

One of the ideas I found was to take a regular sized brown paper sack from the grocery store and paint the sack all different colors and designs (whatever the kids wanted to do). You then roll up the bottom of the sack and the sacks then resemble Mad Hatter hats.

Because paint can take a long time to dry and the kids wouldn't have any time to wear them, my mom volunteered to paint the hats ahead of time, that way the kids could just pick out the one they wanted to wear and it would save time for other activities. Plus, really, 10 kids painting? It's like a nightmare come true.

So, that was one part of the party down. Now for another activity to keep them occupied. The party was 2 hours long so we had to have enough for them to do so they wouldn't run around like hyenas.

The party was being held at my uncle's house. He has an Old English looking house and backyard that was perfect for the tea party. He graciously let us use his house. It really was the perfect setting.

Anyway, I came up with the idea for a treasure hunt. We had one prize and the first kid to get all the clues got the prize. I'm not a big believer in letting everyone win something. Life doesn't work that way. Besides, they were all going home with goody boxes (they were actually little Chinese take out boxes) filled with a magic towel (you know, those compressed wash clothes that expand when they get wet), a Smarties connect four game with spare Smarties, Jolly Ranchers, scented bubbles and Chinese finger cuffs as well as an Alice in Wonderland book and the Mad Hatter Hat. So, they all had enough.

Back to the topic at hand.......the treasure hunt. I wrote out 11 different clues and made 10 sets (we had invited a total of 10 kids, but only 4 showed up....typical). However, in order to keep the kids from just following each other, I had to make each kid take a separate route but still all end up at the last spot. What a pain. I randomly put one of each clue in each envelope with each kids name on it and then had to physically walk out each route for each kid to make sure that they were different but to also have the right clues in the right spot. Not only that, I didn't want to just put down ..... go to the tree. I wanted to make it a little tougher for the kids to figure out. One of the clues said to "get thee to where the roses grow red". That meant that the kids had to figure out where the rose bush was and find the clue at the rose bush. Another one told them to find the "Mad Hatter and tell her a joke". My aunt was dressed up as the Mad Hatter, albeit a modern and female version. This made the kids have to think on their feet. She was instructed not to give them a clue until they told her a joke.

The kids had a blast all around and just enjoyed themselves so much with this aspect of the party. So much so, that at the end of the party, they wanted to do it again and came up with their own version.

They also did one crafty thing. We had found those plastic mugs that have the paper inserts in them that you can customize. Light of my life had done one for me a couple of years ago that was for Mother's Day. Anyway, I thought it was too young for them but they all really enjoyed that as well. Go figure. I guess coloring never gets old.

I also came up with the great idea of baking mini-cupcakes. I had some mini-cupcake baking cups and we bought ONE mini-cupcake pan. ONE, I tell you. That was a mistake. I should have bought several so I could bake more than ONE at a time. Oh, well. The individual cupcake sections on the pan were so small, I had to using an icing squeezer thingie to pour the batter in. That was such a huge mess but also a little fun! I got sick on cake batter. All in all, we had over 100 mini cupcakes. I put food coloring in the frosting and we had pastel yellow, pink and green cupcakes. I had some gel icing stuff, so I used that to write on the cupcakes "Eat Me" like from the book. We had some punch (orange sherbet and ginger ale) that we put in all different size tea cups (that was a chore to find) that had a label that said "Drink Me". We had chips, mini peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut out like hearts (for the Queen of Hearts), chicken salad sandwiches and ham and cheese sandwiches. It was a tasty party.

My grandmother attended as well as my other aunt. It was such a great party. Light of my life said it was her best party yet.

I love to hear that.

Anyway, I'll post some pics in the next post.

Later,

Mama Dawg

Invitations

Light of my life is getting ready to turn 8 pretty soon. It’s that time of year again for the birthday party. Sigh. It’s so much more fun to attend than plan.

Before she reached school age, it was easy on the invites. You just invited the kids you wanted to come. Period.

When she reached kindergarten, she was attending a school in a different state from which we normally lived. Not only did she have to attend school for the first time (I don’t count pre-school because she attended pre-school at her daycare), but it was in a new place with new people. She did fine and made friends.

I decided to have her party at Chuck E Cheese. Now, I love me some Chuck E Cheese. I think I like that place more than she does.

Anyway, in her backpack that morning (about 2 weeks before the party), I sent the invitations we had addressed to just a handful of kids.

Later that afternoon, after I picked her up from after school care, I found a note from her teacher in her notebook.

It said something to the effect that if we were going to invite just a few kids from her class, I needed to find a way to do it outside of school as it was school policy for invitations to be given to every kid in class.

What?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Same thing happened her first grade year. Different school, different state. Same story.

What?!?!?!?!?!?!?

What if I couldn’t afford to have a party for all those kids? What if light of my life hated some of the kids in her class? What if I prepared (or bought) a bunch of food and trinkets for the goody bag and games and drinks, etc….and only 3 people showed up?

I’m supposed to take on the responsibility for feeding and entertaining 21-25 kids whom I don’t even know? I, as a single mother with a limited income and a tight budget, was supposed to dole out between $100-200 for food and junk on the off chance that every kid would show up? Such a waste. Cause you know that not everyone is going to show up and since they didn’t RSVP that they wouldn’t be there, you didn’t want to run the risk of running out of food or goody bags. Cause that would show what a shitty hostess you are. LOL!!

Believe me, putting RSVP on the invite means jack shit to most people out there today. So much for a courtesy phone call stating “yes, we’ll be attending” or “no, we’ll not be attending”. Really, is it that hard to pick up the phone? Drop an e-mail? Hire a carrier pigeon? Make a smoke signal?

When I questioned why, I was told that it would hurt some of the kids feelings if they weren’t invited.

So effing what?!?!?

Life happens. You don’t get invited to every party. Growing up, I KNOW I didn’t get invited to every party and yes it hurt to be excluded. But so what? It taught me that I didn’t have to be included in EVERY LITTLE THING that went on in the universe and it also taught me who my real friends were.

Kids today are too coddled. Everything’s geared towards not hurting their feelings or making sure that they feel included.

In order for these kids to carve out some kind of normal life in today’s society, you need to let them feel the sting of rejection and the hurt of exclusion. Believe me, if they don’t start getting a harder shell now, it will hurt 100% worse when they’re older and feeling it for the first time. Kids at this age are so reslient and get over things far better and quicker than older kids and teens do.

I am so thankful that this new school she attends has no such policy. She can invite whomever she wishes.

And she will.

Later,

Mama Dawg

Mama Dawg at a Mary Kay Party

Yes, yes, yes.....laugh all you want. I was invited to a Mary Kay makeover party. To those of you who know me, that's like inviting someone who hates swimming to a swimming party. I just don't do make-up.

I wore make-up when I was a teenager. I wore eyeliner, mascara and lipstick, but never blush, eye-shadow, foundation or lip liner. I started when I was about 12. I even wore BLUE mascara at one point!!!! When I turned 17 or so, I made a conscious decision to stop wearing make-up. I liked the way I looked without it. When I say I stopped wearing make-up, I meant I stopped wearing it on a daily basis. I did wear it when I went out or if it was a special occasion. I still do.

I'm one of those women that have to throw out almost perfectly full mascara tubes because they end up expiring before I can use them! They start getting that chunky feel to them and get all gooey.

Anyway, last week, a local lady called me up and asked if I'd like to attend a Mary Kay makeover party. Being new in town and all, I accepted. I accepted mostly because it's a small town and I'm not quite at that point where I want to start turning away invitations to get togethers. That and it gave me the opportunity to meet some new people. Also, my family is well known in the town I live in and I don't really want to shed any kind of negative light on my family. This is a new concept for me because before, I didn't live close enough to family for it to matter what kinds of consequences my actions brought. Southern familial politics at its best.

So, with constipation inducing fear in my body and trepidation in my heart, I went to the party last night. It was the hostess, the Mary Kay representative and 3 other women (besides myself) there. Light of my life had been invited as well and one of the other ladies brought her 4 year old daughter.

The mother of the other young girl was probably around my age and the other two ladies were probably in their 60's or maybe 70's. Not sure.

Anyway, after the necessary small talk, we got down to business. All my fears were quickly confirmed when I had to put all kinds of lotions and potions and what not on my face. I was then asked to put on some sort of foundation powder stuff. This is the part where I was extremely uncomfortable. I don't know how to apply stuff like this. I never learned and had never put anything like this on my face before. I didn't even know how to get more powder out of the little tub thingie. I especially didn't know how to put it on with that scary looking brush type thing. I felt like the biggest idiot. I don't mind making an ass out of myself if I inadvertently say or do something (that usually can't be helped) but I felt like an ass for not knowing something that about 95% of the women in the world (yes, I know that's an exaggeration) know how to do. After the foundation debacle, we did get into some more familiar territory when we were asked to put on some eyeshadow. Now, I know (sort-of) the right way to put on eye-shadow. However, the little sample thingie came with INSTRUCTIONS!!!!! Instructions that actually came with diagrams. Diagrams of what was supposed to be an eye but they actually included the upper part of the eye (right below the eyebrow). When did people start wearing eye-shadow waaaaay up there? There were two separate diagrams and they were complicated looking. There was a diagram of how to apply two different eye-shadows (presumably at the same time) and how to do three different eye-shadows. They actually had a pattern!!! Seriously? For real? It blew my mind. I just slapped some shiny stuff on my eyes and moved on to the next little sample thingie. Can you guess what the next sample thingie was? Can ya, can ya? You got it....blush. If you thought putting on eye shadow was complicated, this was 10 times WORSE! It didn't come with any instructions AT ALL!!!! How fair is that? Believe me, there is a right and a wrong way to put on blush but I'll be damned if I knew what either of them was. I about bolted when I saw the blush. When no one was looking, I took my little cotton ball and dabbed it on the blush sample and pretended to put some on. I quickly went past that part and went straight to the lipstick. That was familiar territory and I managed not to mess that up. The party didn't last too much longer after that and I ended up buying some lip balm. There was a little pressure to become a Mary Kay representative but there's no way on God's green earth that you could get me to push any kind of product on anyone, let alone MAKE-UP!!!!!!

The other thing I hate about it is the fact that they were all staring at me when all this was going on and oohhing and aaahhhing over how drastic the transformation was. To me, I didn't look any different. A little shinier perhaps, but not different and certainly nothing to ooohhh and aaaahhh over. Believe me, a shiny Mama Dawg is not something the world is ready for.

Gimme power tools over make-up any day.

Later,

Mama Dawg

P.S. Light of my life ended up looking like a million bucks and she applied her make-up herself. How sad is that? My 7 year old is better at this crap than I am. LOL!!!!