What happens when your birthday falls on Thanksgiving Day?
Poor little Baby John… We couldn’t hold his party the weekend after Thanksgiving because, holiday shopping 😉 Which means that his birthday party wasn’t until a full 9 days after his actual birthday!
It all went by so fast, I have no pictures to show for how fantastically clean my apartment was. But I assure you it was SPARKLING! I scrubbed for hours the day before the party. My husband also did a ton of cleaning and various honey-do projects.
We have a pretty small apartment, but everyone fit inside (with a few kids at an outside kiddie table).
So as far as the theme goes, it was a cross between “let’s not spend a lot of money” and “what can we do that’s low-prep?” Pizza delivery, frozen appetizers, and ready-cut veggies, anyone? With such high standards, it was obviously a fantastically elegant affair 🙂
The baby got some great presents from guests. Not from his parents, though. Cheap-o Mommy and Daddy did our birthday shopping at the secondhand children’s store! He loved the dump truck from Grandma and Grandpa.
When our sweet family and friends left, we put the baby down for a nap. But upon realizing that this was the last time John and I would be home together for the next 8 days and we didn’t have a Christmas tree and all the decorations were in storage, we woke that poor little guy up again and took all the kids to get a Christmas tree. It had to be a fast trip though because John had to leave for work in an hour and a half.
We walked into the lot, chose a tree that looked the right height and was tightly-bound in twine, paid for it and stuffed it into the back of the minivan with the kids. We called it” Christmas Tree Gambling” because we had no idea what kind of tree would be revealed once that twine was cut away. It was definitely our least holiday-ish tree buying trip ever but I’m just happy we got our tree this weekend! Unfortunately, Daddy had to go to work right after we got home and all the decorations were in the storage unit so the tree had to wait, tied up in the living room until Sunday.
After Daddy left for work I put the little guys in warmer clothes, loaded them into the double stroller and with Baby John in the backpack we headed down the street to the Christmas parade. It was so much fun! Both girls had a blast. The baby just chilled in his carrier and I think he fell asleep in between loud horn honks of parade floats.
Of course, Sunday was my week to help at Sunday school so the tree didn’t get unveiled until the afternoon. And it was beautiful! I’m telling you, we got lucky with this tree. Only one small ugly patch but no tree is perfect, right? Plus, one side is against the wall so it all worked out. The girls were thrilled to put ornaments all over it. Well… Kinda all over it. Emily liked sticking them on the branches closest to the ground and Madeline made a huge clump of balls at here eye level. Also, she kept calling the ornaments “names”… Not sure why. “Mommy, can I put another name on the tree?” Silly girl!
This weekend I pulled off a Baby’s First Birthday, got a Christmas tree, went to the Christmas parade (Daddy worked Friday and Saturday night), taught Sunday school and decorated the house for Christmas. I’m beat!
And that was just my weekend… Come Monday morning the real work starts! Here we go again!
