Birthday craziness

So I've been busy this week planning Kate's birthday parties. Yes parties- as in we're sort of having 3 of them. Up first is the Strawberry Shortcake themed party at my Parent's house. Then we're doing it up fancy at our house with Daniel's family and are doing a Fancy Nancy themed party. Then on her ACTUAL birthday we're just having a low keyed party with the 4 of us. At Kate's request we're headed to a Japanese Steakhouse. Her choice not ours.

So in preparation for this Fancy Nancy extravaganza I've been obsessed with making it perfect. It has been stressing me out much more than it should and has occupied far too much time. Thank goodness the party at my Parent's house will be low-key. After much deliberation I realized that despite my desire to be a cake decorating genius- I don't need to tackle a 3-tier cake for the first time for my kid's 5th birthday. Therefore a quick call to a bakery in the city with a nice website and voila! One problem solved.

So next I decided that if you're going to have a fancy dinner party as part of your birthday celebration then you need fancy dishes. So again despite my desire to have loads of money and the ability to just go out and buy perfect dishes- I opted for the thrift store approach. Why not use what you have you might ask? Because somehow I don't have 8 of one kind of plate that doesn't have green leaves on it. Not exactly a match for a party with pink and purple as the predominant colors. So there we are in what we refer to as a garage sale within the mall and I find 8 of this little gem.

The plate on the top stack had a sticker that said $9.00 each but none of the other plates had a tag. Some other stack of plates had a price tag on each plate. So I ask the teenage kid who's working and clearly doesn't care if it's really supposed to be $9.00 for the set. He guesses it is and I'm out the door plates in tow and the junk store is $9.00 richer. Apparently they should have been that price at least per dish. We did a little searching and discovered they're real bone china and have a real platinum trim. I'd say not too shabby of a deal.

I also found some really pretty and kind of old looking glasses at the Salvation Army. They were only $6.00 for 8 and after some re-arranging have found a new home in my china cabinet where they'll stay for safe keeping until the party. I'm guessing I didn't get as good of a deal on them but they'll do.

I finished up her invitation today- not that we really needed one since it's just family. Here it is...

I also found her a perfect birthday outfit to wear- assuming it gets here in time. After all this drama I started thinking about birthday parties when I was a kid. It surely couldn't have seemed like as big of an ordeal to my Mom and Dad as it seems to me every year for her parties. I blame the Internet.