McKenzie's First Party a Success

Last night when we crawled and I mean crawled into bed, my husband says, "We survived our little girl's first birthday party and it was a success." And I think that was my last thought before I crashed hard.

I'm not the best hostess, Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray would be stunned at my total lack of entertaining/presentation skills. I'd like to be better at it, but where would I find the time?

Yesterday, and this happens every time we invite guests over, I was running around from the time I got out of bed until I crawled into bed last night, like a chicken with its head cut off. I ran to Costco and picked up the burgers, dogs and soda. Then I popped over to Kroger for chips, ice and produce.

When I arrive back at the house, my husband, is in the garage trying to turn a chaotic space into an outside dining area. We had mail covering the kitchen table, toys scattered all over the place and grocery bags with food in multiple locations.

I knew my neighbor, Kayla, was going to come to my rescue and decorate the house but how was she going to decorate when you couldn't get to any of the areas? We went into overdrive, things were stuffed, yes stuffed into the laundry room out of sight. Our guest bedroom became a dumping ground for anything that needed to get out of the way. And when we'd finished our dumping, I locked the door, afraid that if someoen were to open the door, the contents would spill out everywhere.

And by 3PM and hour before the party was scheduled to start, we'd made great progress. Kayla was hanging yellow and blue streamers, tacking the banner to the wall, putting together the cone party hats, etc. I had the chili simmering, the hot dogs boiling and was chopping the vegetables that would top the burgers. Bethany, our neighbor and Kayla's sister arrived with the cake...wait her fantastic creation that was the cake. And it was pretty awesome for a little girl's first birthday cake. Our other neighbors arrived, began wrapping a few presents we hadn't wrapped yet, and helped finish setting the table.

I took a deep breath, checked the clock, 3:45 and realized we were so far ahead of schedule compared to our usual party preparation timelines and I relaxed. The guests arrived and MC enjoyed moving from one to another being held, and fed, and plain being spoiled. She came over and played with Colton, the 2 year old from down the street, and they played next to each other for a while.

Everything went relatively smoothly. Now MC didn't smash the cake as we were waiting and encouraging her to do but that's not such a bad thing. And we weren't able to keep her attention while unwrapping all of the gifts, no surprise there. JB and I found it amusing how MC was so fascinated with all of the balloons.

So her first birthday party is in the books as they say and we can relax until next year.

Now, how do we handle having a live Christmas tree and wrapped presents with a toddler?