Party Planning

Since Olivia’s second birthday, her parties have been held as a group party with Sabella and Jaxon. Sabella was born the year before Olivia and Jaxon was born the year after. They were all born in November with their birthdays just a few days apart.

So that first birthday together, J was one, O was two and S was three.

We’ve done it that way ever since.

Yet, Olivia has watched her sister have very different birthday parties in the past few years.

When Alyssa turned eight, we had a roller skating party. When she turned nine, she invited her entire class to our house (five of them came, which was a relief.) Last year for her tenth birthday, we had her party at the gym where the girls take gymnastics.

This past summer, Olivia spent much of her days watching PBS and there are commercials on our local (Fort Wayne) PBS that advertise a party place called Jungle George’s. These commercials tell the kids to “Have your birthday party here!”

And so that’s what Olivia decided she wanted to do.

She’ll be seven this year. She’s done (for now) with group parties, thank you very much. She wants her own party at Jungle George’s.

I called and scheduled the party a couple of weeks ago and just days later, my cousin, Sabella’s mom, mentioned that we needed to start planning the November kids’ birthday party.

I had to break it to her that Olivia’s party is already scheduled and paid for. I explained that Olivia had her heart set on a Jungle George’s birthday party and after watching her sister have all these fun destination (ha!) parties, she wanted her turn.

My brother explained that Jaxon wanted his birthday party to be at their new house but he went on to say that if H wanted to have S’s party there with them, that was cool.

I’ve created the invitations for O’s party and will be sending them next week. She’s so excited she can’t even stand it. She says she can’t believe she gets to have her party at Jungle George’s. She’s cute when she’s excited.

Alyssa decided last weekend that she wants to have three friends over for a slumber party the weekend of her eleventh birthday. My first thought, “Yay! That’s way cheaper than a gymnastics party or a skating party.”

My second thought was, “Crap, how am I going to keep O out of Alyssa’s hair when Alyssa has three friends over and the older girls want to do their things and Olivia just wants to be included?”

Then I had a brilliant idea. I called my mom. She agreed that it was brilliant and was willing to do her part.

The night of A’s slumber party, Jaxon and Olivia will get to go to Gram’s for a slumber party of their own. Tom and I will settle into the living room and leave the family room to the four preteenage girls who will have probably eaten everything in our kitchen.

It’ll be awesome.