Birthday Party Adventuring

Just your neighborhood ScareBnB family.

The House of Baroness Design Studio.

LEGO Friends Artwork!

At this point in my children’s lives I have earned myself quite the reputation for my birthday parties. Saturday was Frankie’s 8th Birthday. I would like to think I didn’t disappoint. A Cruella Party, with a fashion design space and a runway to boot. And let me be clear… this post is not some effort to rationalize the seemly over the top parties, simply me owning it.

It really started with Frankie’s 5th Birthday: A Vamparina party where our whole house turned into the ScareBnB. Covid no doubt threw a wrench in the people attending for about a year, but didn’t stop the efforts.  We made a full fledged paper mache volcano for the zoom Dino party of 2020. 

My dear friend was giving me a hard time and retorted, “I just stick with the birthday party theme.” And she has a point. A very valid one, and one that works for a lot of people. For me, I really like planning birthday parties. It is a creative outlet for me, and offers me a chance to share that talent with my children. If it isn’t clear by now, I have adopted and live by the philosophy: life is about experiences. Frankie will always remember the runway at her Cruella Birthday Party that kids boogied down, but she won’t remember which plastic toy she got when. When I set out to plan the birthday party it is about the experience: Nolan Ridge: The Paleontologist Dig Site and volcanos erupting; slime making and sugar skull painting at the haunted house; fishing at the mermaid party; tagging plywood at the LEGO Friends birthday party; now a fashion design studio and a runway for a fashion show. My now notorious activities leave my kids talking about them years later.

I also get a bit a flack for putting on the invitation: No presents please. One thing I know, because I tested it, if you ask Frankie to name one present she got at the Vamperina party, she couldn’t. She did however start talking about all the things she did remember: the skeleton sitting at the kitchen counter, the sugar skulls, and the fact that it was like she was at the ScareBnB right in our house.

So yes, I go over the top with decorations and experiences and I put no presents please on the invite.  I am trying to live out what I have figured out matters most in life: the memories and the feelings that come with them.

Don’t worry, my children are not completely deprived of the basic plastic toy, as only about 2/3rds of people listen to me. So my children get a healthy amount of presents, just not a glutenous amount. And reflecting on Frankie’s party this weekend, I found her friends who came, especially those from her class still wanted to bring her something, made homemade cards for Frankie. A far more meaningful present than the $20 plastic toys that will be forgotten in a week. 

So as I sit here today recovering from an epic fashion show, and my fingers raw from threading 700 needles. I am appreciating my flair for going big, and doing birthday parties for my kids, in my style. I know there will come a day in the not so distant future that a runway fashion show won’t be cool, heck hanging out with Mom & Dad won’t be cool, so I figure I will soak up every over the top moment I can now. At least then, after they outgrow the too cool for me stage, we can reminisce about the crazy birthday parties Mom (and Dad as a fine assistant) put on. We can laugh and be reminded of the memories that we have made together. The memories of Birthday Party Adventuring.

**Disclaimer… my copy editor doesn’t come to birthday parties either, so this is me unfiltered, and un-copy edited. I have spent enough of my life trying to be perfect. Now I am just trying to be me!