Amber turned 8 this week! We did all of the celebrating on her actual birthday--Friday, November 4th. In the morning before school, she opened gifts from her family. She brought a treat to share with her class at school. After school, we had 8 kids over for her birthday party with birthday dinner and donut cake. It was a very full intense day of celebrating our Amber!
More details: Amber planned to wake up as early as possible on her birthday, but I told her she was not allowed to wake anyone else up until 6am. She ended up sleeping all the way until 6am, thankfully, and we gave her gifts at 6:30am. We gave her: Pokemon cards, a Pokemon book, a coloring book, a rock identifying kit, and a Kindle e-reader. Amber was overjoyed with each of her presents and it was a challenge tearing her away to have her get ready for school.
Amber walked to the bus stop at the end of our driveway hefting two boxes of individually wrapped pouches of frosted animal cookies to school to share with her classmates for her birthday. Much of my day once the kids were in school consisted of party prep--last minute tidying (I confess to making my daughters' beds and picking up some clutter in their bedroom), kitchen table arranging (larger groups require rearranging the table and adding a bench), and mental preparation for the onslaught of children and sugar.
Before I knew it, I was driving to pick up Jay and Rose from school and it was time to finish getting ready for Amber's birthday party. Rose helped me hang streamers and she personally blew up ten balloons. I made a quadruple batch of macaroni and cheese. It was massive: 4-lbs of macaroni noodles, half a gallon of milk, a stick and a half of butter, and a pound of cheese. It was so much mac, I could barely stir the cheese into the noodles! I briefly considered having other foods at the party, like veggies and other munchies, but then I let it go and simplified. We had macaroni and cheese with water to drink and donuts for dessert. I put the cauldron of mac into the oven on low temp to keep it warm for an hour or so until dinnertime.
This was Amber's first-ever birthday party. I am not a birthday party mom, so this was also probably Amber's last birthday party, honestly. In the allotted 90 minutes, we planned to let the kids play outside, bust a pinata, open presents, feed everyone macaroni for dinner, have donuts, and call it a night.
A few hours before the party began on Friday afternoon, a windstorm blew in with 30 mph sustained winds and 65 mph gusts. Awesome. I saw the forecast and was able to mentally prep myself to have 8 kids inside my tiny house for an hour and a half, but seriously, mother nature? We had to postpone Rose's 8th birthday party for two months due to blizzards with high winds and bitter cold. Planning and hosting a kid birthday party is rough enough! The looming question was: how miserable would pinata time be outside on the porch in the gale force wind?
Amber had fun playing, hitting the piñata, eating mac, opening gifts, and eating donuts with her friends. She invited her four Gibbons cousins, her neighbor-buddy Decker, and her best friend from school Kamila, along with two of Kamila's sisters. The kids were very cute and played well together. Because of the wind storm, the kids stayed inside which was a tad chaotic and crowded. During the party, I mostly sat on the couch and supervised. Jay hid in his room until it was macaroni time. He donned his Nerf gear and any time a kid opened his bedroom door, he pointed a Nerf gun at them. It was effective in defending his territory and carving out peace in the chaos. I was the only adult in the house with 11 kids (8 guests plus my 3 kids). The kids played hide and seek in the basement, which amused me because there are just 3 rooms in the mostly unfinished basement, and only one of them has a door. But I vetoed hide and seek on the main floor of the house because I did not want kids sneaking into my closet or hiding under my bed.
The wind was blasting and rain was spitting when we went outside to the front porch for the pinata, but thankfully it was in the high 50s so we weren't freezing. The pinata swayed in the wind. The kids lined up to take turns whacking the pinata. As the birthday girl, Amber went first. Only 3 kids got to hit the pinata before it broke open! I felt bad for all of the other kids! I talked to Kamila's mom after the party when she picked up her girls, and she said "you've got to go to the Mexican stores if you want a good piñata!" Now we know, haha--go to Fiesta Foods for pinatas. After they gathered all of the candy, the kids took turns beating the decapitated head of the unicorn pinata, just to have a turn at hitting something.
After the macaroni feast and presents, we sang Happy Birthday to Amber and she blew out her eight candles on the heap of donuts While her friends sang to her, Amber was shy. Our fierce intense Amby does not actually like being the center of attention in a big group--something I can easily relate to. Jeff got home five minutes before the end of the party (on Friday afternoon he took a school van of boys to preview the state cross country course). I was so utterly exhausted when the last kid had gone home, I felt like a bag of sand. But Amber was thoroughly celebrated and she loved her birthday.
While I draped myself on the couch, Jay nobly helped clean up the party carnage, stellar son that he is.
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