Charlotte's Minnie Birthday - Wrap Up

Charlotte's 2nd birthday is officially over! This year, I was thinking about going easy... as opposed to last year... well, it didn't quite turn out that way.

Last year, for Charlotte's 1st birthday party, we had 2 duckie themed parties. The first was a family/friends-with-kids who work during the week party; I had a quite large baby pool filled with hundreds of ball pit balls, her new plastic outdoor slide, 8 kids or so, and I made chicken salad on croissants, fruit salad, snacks, duckie cake, cupcakes, and we had sorbet. The second party was for all the mom-group kids; Another 10 kids or so at the house with the same baby pool and ball pit balls, slide, MORE chicken salad, fruit salad, snacks, duckie cake #2, cupcakes, and sorbet. PHEW!
This year I determined to make it easier on myself; have 1 party and have it at the park. No clean up. Nice. However, as party day grew closer and we started watching the weather, we found that we (who are pretty much on water restrictions because of drought) were going to get rain. So I look at the guest list, and somehow we were going to potentially have to fit 19 kids (toddlers) and 32 adults in my house. So I worried and fretted, and eventually decided to reschedule my mom-group friends, since that would pretty much split the party in half. Now we are back to 2 parties. Oh boy.

The day of the party (#1) we started frantically cleaning the house due to the weather forecast. We hemmed and hawed about where to have the party (house or park) until 45 minutes before the party. We said, "PARK!", and we packed everything into the car and headed over. We were excited to find that a closer "first come first serve" shelter was available than the one we reserved and went to work unpacking everything. The party turned out great (despite the fact that guests arrived before we were set up) and the rain held off ... and I had a clean house back at home!

But we weren't over yet... I still had to do the other half of her birthday party with all of the mom-group friends. This time it was a bit less hectic since I already had everything made, I just needed to take the cupcakes and cookies out of the freezer, arrange the deli platter, and cart everything (back) to the park.

I guess it's time to get started on Jillie's 1st birthday party in September... just kidding.

If you missed any of my previous posts check them out:
Crafty Stuff and Favors
The Menu
Tissue Minnie Mouse Sign
Minnie Mouse Ears