I have systematized a lot of things in our family life, but birthday parties are not one of them. As of now, we have no set pattern or household rules to follow about who gets one when, what they look like, or who is invited. Thus far, we have had:
And now, a fourth birthday party for Shep at a local park! (Of course, on years we haven’t had official parties, we’ve celebrated birthdays in other ways, either with small family-only meals, birthday fun days, or very casual park meet-ups with friends.) His party was a sweet little delight, and I would love to tell you about it.
A few months ago, Shep started asking about having a birthday party. Given how COVID had changed the landscape for much of his preschool career, he hadn’t really attended any birthday parties until earlier this spring. Once he did, though, he was hooked, and expressed interest in a “camping and nature” themed bash for his own number four. This was most definitely a theme I could work with, and so my planning assistants and I got to work.
First up: location! We chose a somewhat out-of-the-way local park, with a pavilion tucked right up next to a small playground. The park is on a lake, and given the heat of July, I figured a morning soiree next to a body of water gave us the best chance of surviving an outdoor party.
We invited a truly eclectic selection of guests: my sister and her family; four “family friend” families; two newer-friend families from church; and the families of four preschool friends. If everyone had been able to attend, we would have topped out at almost 50 guests, but with summer travels and last-minute sickness, we ended up with a small group: my parents, Kate’s fam, my younger sister (who flew in as a surprise!), and three preschool friend families. It worked out perfectly: I joked that the only people Shep really cared about being there were his two best buddies from school (they are inseparable!), and he was positively thrilled to spend the morning with them. We sent out Paperless Post invitations to keep things simple.
Since it was a morning party, we opted for brunch-y food: chicken minis, of course, and a fruit salad from Chick-fil-a; bagels and cream cheeses from a favorite local shop; mini muffins from Publix; a mix-your-own trail mix bar; and juice boxes, water, and Waterloo to keep everyone hydrated. E-A-S-Y was my watchword.
The trail mix bar included Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, peanuts, mini pretzels, m&ms, bunny grahams, and mini marshmallows (which promptly stuck together into big clumps, ha – not the best choice for the heat).
In lieu of a traditional cake, we continued the brunch theme and opted for a tower of Duck Donuts.
The park setting was lovely and perfect for our theme, so we added just a few touches: a string of felt bunting to mark the pavilion, kraft paper runners with animal track decals for the tables, and paper goods. Very important: we brought two large standing fans to bring a breeze and keep the bugs away! They were quite effective.
We also set up our backpacking tent and Eno hammock nearby for the kids to play in, and they enjoyed those between runs to the playground.
The final organized activity was tucked inside the goodie bags: a custom nature scavenger hunt.
The favors were probably my favorite part: I’m stubborn about providing something edible or that won’t be immediately discarded, and since we had a smaller guest count, we could splurge a bit. I stamped muslin drawstring bags with each guest’s name (using these stamps), then filled them with the scavenger hunt sheet, a marker, a mini clipboard, a woodland creature sticker sheet, a granola bar, and a pair of binoculars. The final touch? A specially-chosen gem from the kids’ collections for each friend. You know we’re always trying to find uses for our overflowing rock collection :)
And there you have it! A fun and low-key morning for our best little guy. “I really loved my party,” he said on the way home, which was the sweetest thing to hear.
Thanks for taking a peek, friends! An attendee and I were discussing whether we thought at-home or on-location parties are less stressful. I came down on the side of on-location (where the main stressor for an outdoor location like this one is remembering to bring everything you need – candles, tape, scissors, etc.!), but I’d love to hear what you think!
June has wrapped up her first year of elementary school, which means we’ve been in transition-to-summer mode! Just as we marked the beginning of kindergarten, we wanted to mark its end as a family, too. She had a wonderful year with the best teacher and sweetest class – more than we prayed for by every measure – and so celebrating was easy. Here’s what we did:
1. June got to choose our meal. She chose spaghetti, which in our house means Rao’s sauce and frozen meatballs – easy easy. I added cheesy garlic bread (again, frozen), her dessert choice of chocolate lava cakes with vanilla ice cream and raspberries, and “special drink” (sparkling cider, which is the preferred beverage for every special occasion around here).
2. We set a fancy table. That pink gingham tablecloth has been my go-to for years. We added place cards by June, popsicle plates, taper candles, and flowers from our yard (!). Always love setting a table with my girl.
3. We read good words over her. We’ve started the tradition of asking her teachers to write a note each year in a picture book, and at dinner, we read their beautifully-encouraging words. She beamed the whole way through.
(We chose this book for the tradition. I looked at lots of options, and though I wouldn’t say this book is the absolute best story, it’s sweet, the illustrations are lovely, and the pages have enough negative space for notes. For message, my first choice would have been this book, but alas, there’s not enough space for notes on the pages.)
4. We brainstormed summer fun. Also at dinner, we went around the table and took turns adding adventures to our summer fun list. I’ll take the ideas and form them into a list we can print for the fridge in the next week or so.
5. We filled in her school years memory book. I ADORE this simple and lovely book. Over the weekend, she and I spent some time filling in the prompts for the end of the school year and adding photos and artwork.
6. We hung our summer calendars. I printed oversize prints of this free summer reading chart and this $5 summer calendar. The illustrations by Camp Castle are so sweet, and the extra-big size just makes them fun. June got busy coloring the edges while I filled in our plans for June, July, and August. Hanging a summer calendar was a game-changer in 2021, so doing it again was a no-brainer!
Happy first day of summer, friends! If you recently closed out a school year, did you mark it in a special way? I’d love to hear!
Back in the fall of 2020, when our preschool opened back up, we met two of our dear family friends.
The preschool opened up with more limited hours, and so the three of us all suddenly picked up at the same time. After a distanced summer, we were hungry for even casual interactions with strangers – which is what this started out as, as our children ran and played outside the school for a few minutes before loading into cars.
Day after day, strangers grew into acquaintances who grew into friends. By piggybacking off our kiddos, we were able to “hack” one of the oldest tricks in the book: making new friends at school – except this time, it was our kids’ school, not our own. This allowed us to quickly up the time quotient of the friendship equation, which can be hard to do post-graduation. Casual interactions, swapped stories, and frequent check-ins piled on top of another until one day, I realized these new friends were as close as many old ones.
We swapped phone numbers. We met up at a park. And then, after many months, we took a big step forward: one of the families hosted a weekend dinner. There’s just something about being in someone’s home that’s a huge leap forward for relationships, don’t you think? We had a lovely evening, and then several months later, the other family hosted us all at their home.
As we pulled out of the driveway, John and I chatted about how it was our turn to host, but that we wished our home was more conducive to having multiple families with kids over. (Our house is wonderful for our own family with young kids – the open plan makes it easy to interact while I’m cooking and they’re playing, for example – but it can get loud and chaotic and hard for both the kids and grown-ups to enjoy themselves when it feels like we’re all on top of each other and the floor is somehow suddenly strewn with every toy we own.)
Then, June piped up from the back in a sad little voice: “I wish we could have the friends over to our house.” Not realizing she had been listening, we fell over each other to assure her that we could have friends over to our house and that our house was wonderful, because the last thing I want her to think is that there’s such a thing as a house that’s not good enough to host friends, or that I was anything but grateful for our perfectly wonderful home. She was reassured, and we talked about how it might be nice to have a spring party so that we could enjoy our backyard. And then I forgot about it.
But she did not :) And so, a few weeks ago – apropos nothing – June asked when we were going to have our spring party. And so, a spring party it was. We set a date, and the planning commenced.
Friends, my big girl is her mother’s daughter, and she launched into party planning with great zeal. Here’s a sheet with some of her notes:
Over several weeks, we brainstormed food, we made decorations, we planned activities, we baked and frosted sugar cookie party favors, and on the day of, we did all the final preparations together. She was in heaven. In celebration of imperfect hosting, I thought I’d share a few photos…
The flowers for the back fence were the biggest project – they probably took 3-4 or so hours over several days. Does that seem like a lot for something we tossed in the recycling post party? Maybe, but it was a delight. June and I listened to the Yoto radio while we cut the petals out of paper plates (I still have a gigantic stack from pandemic preschool-at-home) and then Shep joined in to paint 60 flowers. I hot glued them onto twine and John helped us hang them right before the party. It was SO fun, and they looked so sunny and cheerful!
We also hung some honeycomb poms from my party-planning stash from our trellis and the branches of the trees.
For food, we started with a charcuterie spread from Raleigh Cheesy that one of the other families brought (SO GOOD!) and lemonade/lemonade cocktails for the grown-ups. We kept things easy for dinner with hot dogs and brats on the grill, plus fruit salad, cut veggies, and a tray of Chick-fil-a mac and cheese. Dessert was warm box brownies (Betty Crocker always) with freshly-picked strawberries and whipped cream spooned over the top. June’s sugar cookies (from our favorite baking book) were the take-home favors.
Whether you’re nervous to host or it feels like your circumstances are less than ideal, I hope this post encourages you to go for it if it’s something that matters to you! This night is such a sweet memory – and we’re all eager for the next one :)
And never forget – string lights make everything 100x more magical.
In honor of Earth Day (today!), I wanted to share about something fun we tacked on to Articles Club this week: a stuff swap!
Our beautiful table at Stephanie’s! She is good at what she does! :)
What’s a stuff swap, you ask? In our case, it was a chance to trade our gently-loved items for someone else’s: similar to a yard sale or thrift store adventure, but with only the creme de la creme of items – the treasures you’d be thrilled to bring home after a long day of hunting. Ours was very casual, quick, and simple, but still fun – and it made me want to host a more full-scale swap in the future! Here’s a little bit about how it worked.
Unlike a book swap or a clothing swap, this was a stuff swap, and anything was fair game. Gals did actually bring clothing and books, but there were also beauty items, home decor finds, kids’ stuff, paper products, and more. We limited everyone to bringing just ten items so it didn’t become overwhelming, but I think if the swap was the focus of your event, you could raise the limit!
Some of the goodies and the gals
Steph had set up a folding table in her living room, and as we arrived, we rather unceremoniously arranged our items wherever they fit. This was just fine, but again, if you were going all out, it could be fun to designate different areas for different categories or provide more surfaces/levels to “merchandise” the goods.
To decide who went home with what, we started with a snake draft. (A snake draft, if you’re not familiar, goes like this: person A picks, person B picks, then person C, C, B, A.) We did two snake draft rounds and then opened up the floor for everyone to choose any remaining items they’d like. No fist fights ensued, but there was plenty of QVC-esque marketing of items, ha!
Early picks included a countertop compost bin; a pair of Hunter boots; Anthro coffee mugs; pretty tea towels; the Floret, Elizabeth Holmes, and Annie F. Downs books; a cocktail shaker; heart-shaped cake pans; and a wooden charcuterie board. There were also cozy sweatshirts, a grab bag of greeting cards, candles, and even a few Drunk Elephant items.
For my part, I was pleased to snag a cozy cream sweater (above), jean shorts, a trio of glass candlesticks, and a leopard shift dress. Our youngest and most stylish member, Adelyn, brought the sweater, and even though it was an item she was getting rid of, I snagged it without a second thought, ha!
Any items that weren’t claimed went home with the original owner. It was a welcome opportunity to clear out a few things that felt too special to send to Goodwill but were no longer serving our closets or homes. And a lovely way to live out our article theme for the month: sustainability and green practices!
Have you ever been to a stuff swap? Or a swap of any kind? What kind of swap would you want to host? (I think a cookbook swap would be fun!)
