Cora has been planning her birthday party since she attended a friend's party this summer. Sadly, she always wanted to include her cousins that live in Alaska and Oregon and her friends that live in Colorado. I got very tired of explaining that we could surely invite them, but that they probably wouldn't be able to come since they live so far away, and the ensuing drama that often followed this conversation. Thankfully when the time came she was content to have a party with our seminary-neighbor friends and another party with family that would involve her cousins living here in MI.After having all sorts of aspirations of various themes for her party, she settled on a Rainbow theme. While my brainstorming and creative side would love to get carried away with bringing a theme to life, my practical, frugal and last minute planning sides dictate that we keep it simple. So we had a Rainbow Surprise birthday cake, which of course per tradition Cora helped me bake. (I wonder how many years we'll get to bake her cake together? How old will she be when she could do it on her own?) We made a Rainbouquet of Dum-Dum suckers as a table decoration and for the guests to enjoy. And we made Rainbow Pasta as party favors. (The idea being that I hate sending bags of candy home with kids and this was something fun I've been wanting to try. So instead they took home a colorful bag of fun-shaped pasta to use in a craft - which I also didn't want to tackle at the party so they got to take them home! If I had been better prepared I would have had Cora make a rainbow picture out of the pasta as more decoration and as an idea of how to use the pasta. Oh well!) Of course, we also had our tradition of balloons and streamers all over the house. (It's fun to feel like we are finally having some family traditions from year to year!)
The party consisted of lots of kids singing Happy Birthday to You while Cora beamed with joy that she was surrounded by a bunch of friends for her birthday. We ate cake and ice cream, drank and spilled lemonade, and then the kids played and played. It was simple and wonderful. And it had to be. I knew that because of the guest list we would actually have not just the 5 Korean or Japanese speaking five year olds and one English speaking 3 year old, but also all of their younger siblings (all but one are oldest children, like Cora!). My previous experience with our neighbors seems to be that if one child is invited, all are welcome. So while the invitations were addressed to the kids Cora's age, I expected their siblings to come, too. I was right. So that's why we kept it simple. And it was wonderful. Brad and I actually had to be gone over Cora's real birthday for a wedding in Iowa. Brad was the best man and under the circumstances we decided it would be OK to be gone for Cora's birthday. (The only objection she made was that she worried her friends wouldn't know how to get to Grandpa and Grandma's house -where she would be staying- for her birthday! When I explained that we were having the party with all her friends a couple days early at our house she was OK with it...Never mind the fact that mommy and daddy wouldn't be there!) She and Peter got to spend the weekend with grandparents and also cousins and had a good time. We celebrated family-style with all of them when we returned from the wedding.
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