Birthday Boy

It's *only * been, like, a month (!) since Little Man turned 5.........

So, before I have to start planning for the next birthday, here are some photos/video of both the day itself and the long anticipated (if you're the b-day boy) party!

I know, it took me long enough..... :-)

These were on the big day, before we loaded the car for school that day (Yes, we took the balloons to school and tied them to the special chair/throne they the birthday kid gets to sit in).

For the class, we made little favor tubes with stickers, temporary tatooes, confetti, a balloon, a self inking stamp and small candies. Here is a photo of the contents and then the final package once it was all in the tubes.

I ordered the boxes for the cupcakes from ebay, and I also ordered smaller boxes for the favors at the same time from the same store.... but, what I got when I opened the package from hong kong were these little tubes and the cupcakes boxes. There wasn't time to re-order before the party, so Mom just had to make do. The end result wasn't too bad, if I'm allowed to say so?

As I already admitted in my last post, I 'cheated' on the cupcakes and ordered them rather than made them myself. Still, Kevin was happy with them! Maybe next year I'll be brave enough to make the cupcakes from scratch myself......

For the party on Saturday we did small favor bags with cupcakes, all in the theme of (of course) Cars. Everyone got a bag and a Cars balloon (or a star ballon if you one of the three girls) when they left the party. Since we had 12 kids for the party, compared to 25 plus in the class, we could have some small gifts in the bags as well.

The party on Saturday for 12 was at a bowling and event center in the next town over, Hoofddorp. They had a package for birthday parties that included birthday cake (you couldn't bring your own), drinks and then 1 1/2 hours bowling. We had three lanes - you can only have 6 kids per lane, and then I had an extra lane for the parents, which worked well - most of the parents stayed and bowled and had a good time, and I had some some support. I wouldn't advise trying to handle 12 kids in a bowling alley solo! The last hour of bowling was "disco" or cosmic bowling with blacklight and dance music. The kids all got glow in the dark necklaces to wear, and we were done entertaining by 4pm. I still think next year, Mom might scale it back to 6-8 kids, sizewise...........but I'm not thinking about next year yet! (no, really, I'm not!) :-)

As you can see from the video, Kevin got some great presents and we'll sign off with a photo of the (future) bowling phenom in action!

Party Planning 101 - Dutch Style

So, now, onto the Party Planning phase of Mission:Impossible - Birthday Edition. This was originally one really loooong post together with the countdown clock, but I decided to break into smaller posts before a reader's eyes started to bleed :-)

When it came to planning where and what the party should be this year, we based on recent experiences he really semeed to enjoy, something we could do with between 10 and 12 children, and something that, with any luck, I could enourage the parents to stick around for, becuase who really wants sole responsibility for tweleve 5 year old boys?

The fun he had with Bowling during the Christmas break meant he wanted to have a bowling party for this birthday, in the theme of everything Cars - Lightening Mc Queen, to be exact. At first, it was Spiderman (again), then it was SpongeBob (who Kev loves (from his dad) but is not so popular over here yet), and finally we settled on the ever cool, always a hit with 5-7 year old boys, Cars. it also ticked all of mom's boxes (see above) so, I figured we were good to go!

With that settled, Mom has spent the better part of two weeks searching websites both here and in the US (love Ebay for things like this!) for all things Cars. So far, I've found the favors for both the class party and the bowling party attendees, the balloons, the invites, and someone to make about 70 cupcakes for the different parties (easier to transport and share than a cake, and no fights over corner or 'small' pieces!

I'm outsourcing the cupcakes because as much as I love to bake, 70 cupcakes is beyond my capabilities during a work week. I'll package them nicely and with some creativity (I'll post pictures later) but the actual baking would just be overwhelming on top of the parties and gifts and the invites.

Class parties over here are so...creative. There are home made gifts, made to look like other things (think paper ducks whose wings are chocolate egg holders, elaborate things made out of pipe cleaners……you get the idea? Then there are the funny handcrafted bags to put everything in...maybe it is for a lower costs overall (as a Dutch pastime seems to be to compare relative cheapness of things with pride – “this, oh it took only 5 hours and 49 cents to make!), but unless there are some bulk methods to buying craft items I haven’t yet stumbled across here after 13 years, it's never as cheap as they say when you try to replicate it!!

The materials that go into crafty handmade things aren’t exactly cheap over here (there are no large craft stores, or malls or anything like that in most towns, and then you've got to figure in the time it takes to make 50-70 of anything.

There aren't enough hours in the day for this mom, I'm sorry to say. I love to be creative, but that's just too big a scale for me. Those are the moments I feel very fish out of water with the more traditional Dutch moms who work 2-3 days a week and have time for these kinds of activities. At birthday time, I'm jealous, and wish I could do more 'from scratch'. Oh well... Maybe I need a hobby room like Holly's! - I should put in a request for an attic conversion, hmmm.......

You wouldn't think 12 invites would be a big deal - I didn't, but then I got the invites and realized they were completely blank! That means a lot of handwriting, in Dutch! The Dutch part is what takes forever, then add on Kevin's wanting to 'help' by writing his name in each invite, and mom's bright idea to add confetti and a balloon to each invite, then realize I was out of stamps and needed to order/buy some (because otherwise I'm trusting one almost 5 year old to deliver something to another 4 or 5 year old, and they in turn have to get it home to mom and dad), and before I knew it, 12 invites had turned into a worthy part of a blog post.

I'm also carrying on the tradition this year of the b-day shirt. Every year, I've gotten something for everyone who comes to his parties to sign. For the first b-day, it was the autograph bear with birthday cupcake from Build-a-Bear, and each year since, I've gotten a personalized t-shirt in the theme of the party that all the kids (and parents) can sign. This way he has something fun to wear on the day once everyone has signed it, and later he'll have something to look back at as his friends change (or don't).

So, with 29 nights to go, and the invites to 12 kids and their parents out........now I have to think about what my present will be...I'm tempted to go easy this year while I still can and do the party, let 1 or 2 friends stay over, and call it good. I think between Dad, Oma and Opa's, and the friends who come to the party, he'll be more than covered gift wise, and a party for 12, plus the class party for 30 has to be paid for somehow, and it's all mom as far as planning and invested time goes..... What do you guys think - can a party be considered a gift?

Leave a comment and ease my guilt, or let me know if I'll be scarring him for life if there isn't a package in the pile with my name on it.

I'll re-visit in March with pics and party stories, promise!

B-day Countdown Clock

I think this is universal to moms everywhere, but the only way to measure time as far as Little Man is concerned is 'How many more night do I have to sleep until......?"

We used this to great effect when Oma and Vivi came to visit this last summer, but then it was with the visual help of a paper chain - we took one chain link away each night before bed, and then he could count the links left. It's amazing to me that in the 7 months or so since, his countdowns are now more or less in his head. I have to set the base line number (90, or 40 or whatever) and then he pretty much keeps track from there, and will then tell me every night after ' did you know there are only so many more nights till..........'

He gets occasionally caught up when he's been 3 or 4 nights with his dad, and hasn't done the countdown in the in-between days, so we'll have to reset the count.....but overall, he's pretty spot on, and understand the concept that the closer something is, the less nights there are till it happens. I bring this all up because the countdown we are in the middle of now is '29-more-nights-till-the big-5-and -31-till-the-party-countdown.

So, in that spirit, and since Kevin lately has taken to asking if he can see 'his pictures on mommy's computer that are for Oma' (also known as 'the blog'), here is his very own Birthday Countdown Clock:


Birthday-Countdowns