My Petunia turns seven this Monday. In celebration, she knocked out her seventh tooth today. Seriously. She did the deed by repeatedly face-planting on a beanbag chair, making me realize that having a brother almost five years younger is teaching her some tricks that she missed the first time around.
In honor of Petunia's seventh year, we hosted an after-school dinosaur extravaganza on Friday, and I grudgingly admit that it was her best party ever. I strongly prefer to go elsewhere -- to a gym, craft place, wherever -- so that all I am responsible for is bringing the cake and goody bags. But Petunia wanted nothing more than a dinosaur party at home, complete with a homemade dinosaur cake (see left, dedicated by our talented Austrian au pair Maria), a triceratops pinata, and a "real" dinosaur dig in which the kids excavated dinosaurs out of hardened sand eggs. We threw in a nine-foot high inflatable T-Rex that the kids all wrestled, a dinosaur egg hunt, and pin the horn on the triceratops. Despite my over-attention to planning enough activities to keep the kids entertained, I think the kids most enjoyed playing dinosaur freeze-tag, a game that Petunia made up.
Since the party came the day after my own birthday, I decided it'd be nice to invite the parents of the kids over for a light, finger-food dinner and beer at the party's end. After a snafu in which the huge bouquet of fruit arrived five hours early, requiring me to store most of my fridge's content in my neighbor's coolers temporarily (thanks to June Cleaver for the bail-out on that one!), everything went swimmingly. Sometimes I am very frustrated that our town is Mayberry-small, but, many other times, I am glad for the neighborliness. We have some great friends here, and it was a nice little birthday treat of my own to spend some time with them. My house wasn't perfectly clean, the weeds on my patio threatened to trip people, and I almost had a heart-attack the morning after when I saw a spiderweb in the bathroom that had obviously been there a while... but if our friends saw that, they didn't mention it, which, in my book, makes them Very Wonderful People. Thanks for the memories, all!
In honor of Petunia's seventh year, we hosted an after-school dinosaur extravaganza on Friday, and I grudgingly admit that it was her best party ever. I strongly prefer to go elsewhere -- to a gym, craft place, wherever -- so that all I am responsible for is bringing the cake and goody bags. But Petunia wanted nothing more than a dinosaur party at home, complete with a homemade dinosaur cake (see left, dedicated by our talented Austrian au pair Maria), a triceratops pinata, and a "real" dinosaur dig in which the kids excavated dinosaurs out of hardened sand eggs. We threw in a nine-foot high inflatable T-Rex that the kids all wrestled, a dinosaur egg hunt, and pin the horn on the triceratops. Despite my over-attention to planning enough activities to keep the kids entertained, I think the kids most enjoyed playing dinosaur freeze-tag, a game that Petunia made up.
Since the party came the day after my own birthday, I decided it'd be nice to invite the parents of the kids over for a light, finger-food dinner and beer at the party's end. After a snafu in which the huge bouquet of fruit arrived five hours early, requiring me to store most of my fridge's content in my neighbor's coolers temporarily (thanks to June Cleaver for the bail-out on that one!), everything went swimmingly. Sometimes I am very frustrated that our town is Mayberry-small, but, many other times, I am glad for the neighborliness. We have some great friends here, and it was a nice little birthday treat of my own to spend some time with them. My house wasn't perfectly clean, the weeds on my patio threatened to trip people, and I almost had a heart-attack the morning after when I saw a spiderweb in the bathroom that had obviously been there a while... but if our friends saw that, they didn't mention it, which, in my book, makes them Very Wonderful People. Thanks for the memories, all!
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