The Birthday Party

I had every intention of baking my own giant cupcake cakes for the party. They were going to be wonderful and look so cool and make me look so domestic and savvy, but this did not go as planned. I had gotten the inspiration from the very domestic and wonderfully savvy Darby. I will remember in the future that I just do not have the skills that one does. However, it was a fun memory making the cake with Alder and I froze the cake and so we will pull it out and frost it on some rainy day. It was not that the cake turned out poorly it was just that I started this "project" too late in the week and felt too overwhelmed. 

So I did the easy thing and picked up the phone and called the Cake Gallery in Chatty and had my parents pick it up on their way down to our house. I mean my time is money, right??? I felt like I could breath again and proceeded with all the other party planning.

We wanted the party for Alder to be very low key and simple. We brainstormed on what we should do and came up with the idea of "borrowing" farm animals from one of our friends. I have learned that this is an easy thing to do while living in rural Alabama and that if we had asked several more friends, we could have ended up with a whole slew of farmyard chaos, but we settled for just a donkey and a baby cow. The whole week leading up to the party all Alder could talk about was the "donkey horse" and "bebe cow" that were going to come to his house. It was very fun to build the excitement of the animals, the cake, the friends, and both sets of his grandparents all coming just for him. Alder seemed to really understand that it was going to be his special day. I planned the party for the morning (so I would not have to serve a meal) and that we would be outside RAIN OR SHINE. Rain it was and we still had a ball. Our large covered porch came in handy and all 35 of us or so all gathered around migitized tables for the kiddos and ate cake, drank hot chocolate, and snacked on goldfish. It was a fun time of fellowship and donkey rides....yes, there were donkey rides. Alder LOVED the donkey (as he loves all animals) and just sat upon the donkey gazing out upon his party guests. He was quite frustrated when he wanted to also ride "bebe cow" and we had to explain to him that "bebe cow" was too small.

 Clearly one child wanted to play fetch with baby cow.

These two are sisters and were adopted by a wonderful family here. Sweet A is from Russia and Little H is from China. These two are very fun. They both loved riding the donkey.

I know it seems from the look on Alder's face that he is NOT enjoying himself and being a poor host at his party, but when he was on Moses the Donkey he would just get all serious about it and seemingly concentrate on,well, just sitting there.

Halfway through the party Ms. D came to deliver the mail. Well, we love Ms. D and Alder vacated his own party to run down the sidewalk to see her and help her deliver our neighbors mail. Alder is obsessed with the mail truck and garbage truck. Ms. D loves Alderman and the garbage men always honk their horn in a melody for Alder every Tuesday and Friday.

Alder blew out the candles like he had been practicing all week. 

 My tables for the kids were graciously donated. The L Family (Mrs. R is pregnant with baby #8) let us borrow the migitized tables which were greatly appreciated. I was given the fabric for the table runners (thanks Amanda!) and I borrowed a huge roll of red butcher block paper from Bets (thank you and I promise I mean to return it, but we are just having so much fun doing crafts on it...hehe). Mrs. Pat sewed up the table runners for me and I purchased the rest of the paper products from Wal-Mart. We really did not have a lot of expenses which was my command goal for the party.

This is Mrs. Pat. She has been a real blessing in our lives over the last year. She and her family are Menonites and they could not be more dear and loving people. Mrs. Pat helps us out with whatever and is our regular babysitter so I can run my errands and so on. Alder and Kingston both adore her as do I.

It was such a dreary day.

The covered porch just worked wonderfully though.

This picture is just so funny to me.

Yes, there are farm animals tied to my banisters.

These ice cream cones filled with a $1 voucher from McDonald's were our party favors. I did not want to pass out just junky toys from Wal-Mart's party favor section and so I brainstormed feverently and thought of this. I figured the kids could go and get an ice cream cone with Mom for a special little outing.

We had a wonderful time. Alder adored his cake and animals and I think everything else (like grandparents, friends, and presents) was just icing on the cake.