The dust is settling here at Club Amaro...

The balloons have been wrangled into the big black garbage bags, the whipping cream caps have found their way back onto the cans and rogue beads have been picked up off the carpet in order to escape the accidental suck of the self-propelled rebel vacuum cleaner. Mike's shirts have been put away and the lemons are happily resting in the fruit bowl again.

Oh sure there were a few casualties - sprinkles and artificially flavored hearts and discs that will never see a frosted cupcake because they were prematurely dumped onto a plate (and subsequently dumped into the trash). And although I can't get that stinkin' Cotton Eyed Joe song out of my head, I would say that Abby's party was a smash - and she would tell you so (and that's all that matters).

A little recap of the festivities...

After the intake process, the girls were herded to the craft area where they made their personalized beaded zipper pullies. They did a pretty good job with it and only 1 girl could not finish. We had all different color pony beads, buttons, stars and letters. I of course was up until 2am having fun making the samples the night before. My favorite was the blue & yellow combo that I did in honor of the Chargers.

After zipper pullies, the girls were whisked off to the kitchen area where they were bagged (a garbage bag over their clothes) and tagged (hair tags, to keep the hair out of their face) and put in front of a mound of whipping cream! Their mission was to fish for the 4 gummy worms hidden somewhere in the sea of cream. I am truly amazed at the girls ability to get it all over their face, but not their hair.

After the Gummy Worm fishing, the girls moved onto Crazy Balloon T-shirt...a game whose object is to have your partner stuff as many balloons in an over sized t-shirt (Mike's came in rather handy!) in a set amount of time while listening to really loud music (again - I'm not above the shameless plug...we went with an old TapWater favorite, "Cococnut"). I got some good video of this and will share it with you once I get my firewire cable back from a certain South African I know.

Next we moved onto the cupcake decoration activity. I had some already made "blank" cupcakes for the girls and let them loose with a bunch of partially hydrogenated frosting's and sprinkles. I was horrified by the amount of frosting, sprinkles and decor gel that were sacrificed for one little cupcake. On the other hand, I watched as my own daughter daintily embellished her cake, not wasting or overdoing. Man, I just have NO idea where that comes from.

I'll be real honest, after the cupcake decorating, everything was a blur to me. I know there was a printed schedule, and I know that it was adhered to...but, I myself was running on some sort of adrenaline that I didn't know existed in the human body (at least this human body). I think there were alot of games (Dance Freeze, Cotton Eyed Joe, Lemon Push), eating of the cupcakes, opening of the presents and more dancing. Then of course, the handing out of the goodie bags...I especially loved watching my hours of goodie bag handiwork torn apart in a matter of seconds in search of that dream party favor. But as one Mom told me on the way out the door, "Hey, they looked good at the beginning and that's what counts"). Sigh...

Today, I am an overcomer of child birthday party issues. I can forge through the rest of my career as a Mom knowing that I have slain the birthday party monster. I was a participant in a well-executed party and it was a real confidence booster. But truth be told, I can barely take any credit for the success of this celebration of six. Ahhh ha...I made a reference to my secret weapons in my last post. Did you catch it? There were two weapons, really - one named Teresa and the other named Amber.

Teresa was there in my hour of despair as I lamented about my kid birthday party issues. She said, "It's going to be alright because here's what were going to do". Even before that, Amber inspired the "dance party" theme and actually laid out a high level plan that gave me enough confidence to actually order and send out the invitations! After a little pow-wow with Teresa after dinner one night, we had the party sketched out and a shopping list made. Then Amber and Teresa showed up 2 hours before the party and worked out the dancing games. And at 2 o'clock - GAME ON - these girls RAN THE SHOW....and they completely rocked it. I am SO, SO, SO thankful for them - and it was because of them I was able to run the behind the scenes (which is my strong suit) smoothly and snap off a few pics and some video. So - tonight I lift my glass to Teresa & Amber - party crew extraordinaire!



And - speaking of invitations, I can't say enough about Handmade Hellos...Suzy hit a home-run with these custom-made invitations and got them out to me lickety-split. If you love the look of handmade cards, or need some custom designed stuff (even if you don't!) please check out their website and see if you can support this wonderful business!

Well - that's about it in a nutshell...more photos can be found on the Dropshots account. And, a little vid-montage will be coming soon.

A little shout out to my gal Julie over at Lost Luggage whose plans for the weekend make my birthday party drama look like a solitary confinement couch event with bon-bons and I Love Lucy re-runs. Lifting my party glass to you, dude...hope it all goes well (and the Chargers win).

Out,
k