Being a mom = Being a birthday party planner

Hello everyone!

Once again, long time no see. I seem to be the world's worst blogger, my apologies. But with the summer holidays, one of the perks of being a teacher, I happen to have a lot of time right now to pick it up again. 

But whatever will I talk about???

Well, as I told you in a previous post, I am a mom of a summer baby. This means that my son's birthday is coming up quite quickly. Yes, believe it or not, little Luca is turning 3 next Sunday... They grow up so fast, don't they? Just look at him smiling, all excited about his upcoming birthday parties. 

Now this might seem a bit strange, but you heard me (or read me) correctly: I am throwing him a total of 3 birthday parties. I must admit that for his third birthday, this actually sounds really good, just as long as he doesn't expect the number of parties to rise with his age ;-) But that is not the reason behind the birthday madness. The real reason is much simpler: holidays abroad. Around the time of Luca's birthday (and mine) both my brother and his family, and my in-laws are headed in or out of the country, meaning it was absolutely impossible to find one date when everyone could come. Hence the split in family parties + 1 party for his godmother and some other close friends (lack of space in our little house and garden is the reason here). 

So, once the decision had been made to throw him three parties, we had to decide what we were going to do. Is there going to be a theme? What kind of food are we going to serve? What about the drinks? What kind of toys are we going to provide for the other kids? What are we going to buy for his birthday? And the list goes on. So where to begin?

That was quite easy for me. I decided to start with his wishlist. I think as a mom, it is not difficult to determine what your child likes and loves (and for a 3-year-old I would really recommend you still do all the choosing, they can be quite fickle, you know). Luca, for instance, is currently crazy about cars, playmobil, duplo, paw patrol and, his favourite, dinosaurs. To make the wishlist more accessible, I use an online wishlist website, www.lijstje.be (this one is only in Dutch, I'm afraid). I love how easy it is to set it up and for others to use. I just need to log in, decide on the name for the wishlist, decide whether I want a password and start adding presents. Once you have done all this, you can simply let the invitees know where they can find the list and they can choose freely and check the boxes of the things they decide to buy. In this way, the presents will still be a surprise and you won't have any awkward double present situations :-)

Once I had gotten all this done, I figured it was time to start on the menu for the 3 parties. We decided to organise barbecues for the family parties and something afternoon tea-like for his godmother and family friends. I must admit that it seemed quite daunting for me at first to get all of this organised, and I really felt that it would be useful if I wrote everything down somewhere so I could use it for future reference. That's when I created my little planning book...

I still had this little Minnie Mouse Molesking lying around and finally decided to put it to good use :-) Next, I made a table of content, so it would be easy for me to find what I'm looking for

Creating this "party planner" also gave me the opportunity to finally use my pastel markers, Yay! I started with the main title: Luca's birthday parties in 2018. Afterwards I subdivided  the chapter into the 3 parties and a 4th section on the recipes I will need for these parties. When you take a look into the actual chapter of the planner, it kind of looks like this

I'm afraid I've written it all in Dutch, so those of you who don't speak it, might have difficulty understanding what it says ;-) Basically, it comes down to this structure. I start each party with a general overview of who will be there and what the general ideas are (food, drinks, entertainment...). Then I take a closer look at appetizers, the actual main course and dessert. I also make sure to mention the expected prizes of the main course, so I won't get any unpleasant surprises afterwards. This is more difficult for the appetizers and desserts, since I will be making most of that myself. 

The only thing left for me to do at this time, is to make sure I have all the recipes in one place, hence the 4th subchapter...

For those of you who can read it, yes, it is quite an extensive list, but I live by the Dutch motto: It is better to have too much food, than too little. I wouldn't want anyone to go home hungry. And there is always the concept of 'doggy bags'. I already told some invitees to bring some tupperware so they can take extras home with them ;-)

This actually covers most of the planning for me. I also decided to let Luca whack a piñata on the days when there are other kids as well. They can just take their pick from whatever falls out:little dinosaurs, bracelets, cars, pencils... Of course I will make sure there are tons of balloons and some dino deco. He will love it! Now all that is left for me, is to test the recipes so everything will go smoothly for the parties... The recipes and results will follow...

Wish me luck...

Bye bye

Ans x