Labor of Love

I have decided that throwing a child's birthday party is kind of like giving birth. It's long and tiring and easy to lose sight of what it's all about. After it's all over you might say "Whew! I'm never doing THAT again". (I know I definitely said that after giving birth to Ryan, and quite possibly Lucas). And yet you find yourself doing it all over again the following year because you kind of forget how hard it was. (Or whenever your next child is born).

We threw a joint birthday party for the boys this year. It was harder for me to plan this year because I have less free time these days. As a result, most of the prep work was done very last minute, late at night. This was me the morning of their party.

Yikes. Can't believe I just shared that. I managed to make myself a bit more presentable for the party.

 We had a very loose firetruck theme this year. There were so many cute ways I wanted to bring in the theme, but the more I researched ideas online, the more stressed I felt. I finally realized two things....first, my boys didn't care about a theme. They just wanted to have fun with their friends and maybe eat some cake. Secondly, I would never have the time or the energy to throw a Pinterest-worthy party. So I had to let some things go and just focus on making it a fun day for Ryan and Lucas. Here were the two "firetruck" cakes.

One of the best decisions we made was to rent a jump-house. Ryan and his Daddy spent almost the entire day in it.

The party turned out great! The boys had fun and I hope our guests had fun as well. It was a labor of love and of course I will do it again for them next year. I see many joint parties for them in the future.