To those who wait

There are good and bad aspects to most things. A good thing about having your birthday in the school holidays is that you never have to go to school on your birthday. A bad thing is, and this particularly applies to summer holidays, that friends may not be around for a party during the holidays and it is hard to arrange before the holidays and then tends to get forgotten afterwards. The last few years have seen a few missed parties. We, and I suppose I am using the royal we, meant to have a party for all three children in recent years, but didn't actually do it.

Endeavouring to do better next year didn't work, so I decided to just have unbirthday parties. Joss changed her mind a bit but then decided to have one friend over and go to the movies, hang around downtown and then have a sleepover. She did that on Friday. Toby, however, wanted to go to LaserZone.  Finding a free weekend amongst all the cycling, gigs, markets etc. was very difficult, and I don't think I realised that the weekend I chose was in the holidays on the long weekend, but we were thrilled that only a few of his friends were away and couldn't come. One girl even raced back from the south coast so she wouldn't miss out.

They had so much fun!

Toby is bending forward here. He is actually the second smallest....

I have never played, so I don't know how it works, but you get a name and a vest and gun and you have to shoot people and bases. Thirteen kids running around in the dark, upstairs and down. Bethany was allowed to play too and Andrew joined in once.

I don't know who Penny was! 

As part of the party you get lots of pizza, and I chose to have the party from 5 - 6.30pm so that it would be dinner. I'm not sure I approve of mid-morning or afternoon pizza. Lots of these children like Hawaiian pizza but I don't judge.

I made this chocolate cake with much chocolate on it.

I'm not sure how far this trend extends, but amongst Toby's friends at this stage, the thing is to give gift vouchers or cash and food. That was never done when I was a child! He received two actual presents, some chocolate and lollypops and much buying potential! They also do hand made cards full of private jokes from school, that's a good trend.

The kids were really delightful, an even mix of boys and girls. Outsourcing parties can be very expensive but this was was worth every cent. I am now organising Bethany's, which is going to be at home........ am I going to regret it?