It started out simple enough. Let's do a movie night! Can't get simpler/cheaper/more fun than that, I told myself! We'll have pizza, a movie (Megamind per Dane's request), a concession stand, and ice cream cake. Simple, simple! My friend created the invite (THANK YOU Rachel!), and the Dane Dollars (THANK YOU Greg!) to use at the concession stand. I ordered pizza, a few balloon bouquets, put together a fun concession stand, and we had ourselves a party. Oh- can't forget the lovely red carpet and star decor that Grandma brought too! So cute! But again, it was simple and easy and I was excited.
But man.... then guests started arriving, and panic set in. Let me explain. Dane had invited quite a few friends to begin with. Probably 20-22 friends. But hey, kids always back out last minute, or there are always plenty who can't make it even when invited. So I counted on 16-18 kids initially. And even if there were a lot of kids, they were just going to watch a movie-- I didn't need to get tons of crafting supplies, or extra anything-- it would be simple. Simple I tell you!
I guess I really should have paid more attention to the number of party guests invites. Because gradually a few more kids were added here and there-- Dane would come home begging for another friend whom he'd forgotten.... a friend of mine would ask if the invitee's little sibling could come as well; I invited a few more siblings of friends- who were also friends of Dane. Before I knew it, the kid count was at 31 kids-- not including my own 4 children! Two of these said children had life threatening food allergies that I had been very aware of and was very nervous about.
So, it was a large group (35 kids in total) We are talking, there was no where to park! There was a line up of parents out my front door! There were kids hanging from the rafters! There were lights shattering in the garage from vigorous handball playing! There were only 10-14 kids max watching a movie, whilst the other 14-16 kids were roaming around destroying property.... or something, I don't know quite what. It was chaos!!!! And the concession stand (aka heaps of sugar) did not help matters either. These kids had energy to burn and they were leaping, running, .... oh man. It was crazy.
Haha... but as Grandma put it, one day we'll look back and laugh about the whole thing. For now, I'm just counting my blessings that everyone survived. No children were lost on my clock. My heartbeat was a racing trying to keep all of those children safe and entertained. I guess I just assumed that the kids would actually watch the movie! I didn't think of the handball tournament in the garage and the lego sets upstairs that would be much more tantalizing to children then a boring old movie.
Aw well, Dane had a good time and I think that's the point, right? Love that boy just enough to make it all worth it:)
science projects in the morning with Grandma! Very cool birthday present:)
