Birthday Parties for the Time Pressed

Posted on Saturday, November 7, 2009 by Corina

My older two kidlets have the joy of having Birthdays just shy of two weeks apart from each other. Fortunately they’re still at an age where, despite one being a boy (3) and one a girl (5), most of their friends and interests are similar enough that we can get away with just hosting one big party for both of them. Fun, yes, but a little bit too much work for this overworked Mama!

This year we decided to hire a Birthday Party Planner and in addition to saving us time and money, it also saved our sanity (and the planet too!). Melissa was awesome! All I had to do was give her our theme (”whale of a party/undersea adventure”), although she does have lots of her own ideas, and she came a couple of hours early to set up, party in a box in hand. Her creativity blew my socks off and the kids had so much fun “swimming” in the ball pool, hanging out in the sea cave and fishing up a storm. She also brought crafts and stickers, all in line with the ocean theme. Not only did she set it all up (awesome decorations!) but she also came at the end and cleaned up all of the decorations and games for us. So nice. Her “party in a box” also included table cloths and food platters. I loved not having to launder messy table linens or dumping any PVC in the garbage afterwards.

Outsourcing for the bulk of the party allowed me time to do the fun stuff, like make a Birthday cake.  I was pretty proud of my organic and food coloring-free cake. The “water” ended up being a light purple instead of aquamarine, but it was pretty tasty, if I do say so myself!

So if your creative juices have run dry I highly recommend checking out http://www.prettyupparties.com/ You just might win one of the great prizes she’s offering right now as part of her launch party!