Golden Birthday

Blowing out candles at Grandma Wilson's

Christian has said to me a couple of times that this is his "Golden Birthday" He turned 8 last week and the golden part is that he gets to be baptized. The other great thing about this birthday is that he gets to have a party.  And boy was it a party. Here's a recap of the day


He opened his presents in the morning. His birthday party was his big present so he opened some new pajamas, a small toy, and his favorite snack, Bugles. He was pretty excited about those as you can see.

I also stayed up late sewing this snake. It's been a year in the making. The stuffing is a piece cut off of a memory foam mattress Aaron cut for his van.  We thought it looked like a snake and ever since I've been wanting to turn it into a snake for Christian. When I finally went to get the fabric I found the perfect snake skin- looking fabric.

I spent the entire day preparing for his birthday party. At times I thought I was either going to faint or stop breathing. I had so much to do that I couldn't concentrate on any one thing.  My thoughts about the event always went back to, "how can I simplify this?" Even though I wanted to simplify I also have a weakness of having a go-big-or-go-home mentality. So I was battling it out in my head for the two weeks between sending out invitations and the party itself.

The first problem was the invitation

Actually the first problem was me telling him he could invite everyone he knows. After I made that mistake I decided we wouldn't all fit in my house so I reserved the church. I thought we could just play all the games that Christian likes to play when his friends come over.  But I felt like I had to call it something so I came up with the Olympic Games.  

Oh boy, now I had to actually create the Olympic Games. Which meant countries, and opening ceremonies and olympic events and gold medals.

Since I really wanted to simplify I didn't do all of those things, but what I did do took me a long time.

The results were so good. My friend and I had a conversation last week about how hard it is to ask other people to help. We don't want to burden them when they've already got their own burdens. Well, I knew if this party was going to happen I was going to need some help so even though it was hard I called on family members and boy did they ever come through for me. It was one of those glorious occasions when you know you have the absolute best family in the world. You feel so grateful and so blessed and so special all at once. I usually feel this way in big moments in my life like my wedding, baby blessings, birthdays, and baptisms. I also had a friend call me in the middle of the day and out of the blue to offer help. She was a godsend.  And another friend drove 45 minutes toting all her kids and three of Christian's friends from Perry to be there. That meant so much to me. He loves his friends from Perry and it wouldn't have been the same without them.

We had fun and we wouldn't have had as much fun without Aaron. He took time away from working on the house to be there. He knows how to have fun and he adjusted the games a little bit to make them better.   

We had dump truck races

And per Christian's request, the limbo

 This is my friend Erin who called out of the blue to help me.

There was airplanes and rockets

And tug'o'war

After Germany, Japan, Russia and the USA battled it out, Aaron and Mason took on the whole bunch.

Christian wanted an Olympic/Hot Wheels cake. I couldn't figure out how to join the two so I made one of each. I never took a picture of the Hot Wheels cake. It was interesting that's for sure.

 His friends were so generous in showering him with gifts. It was like Christmas, but even better.

I managed to snap a photo with Emma's ipod at the end. Some of the kids were off playing. Isn't this a cute bunch of kids? I did end up making medals that turned out fun.

Whew! What a day. It took a lot of effort, required a lot of help, caused a lot of stress, but ended up being so fun and memorable. And Christian felt really special. A success!