William's birthday party

I was a little preoccupied with other things in the month of September to do a lot of planning for William's birthday. Billy left for Texas the 1st of the month, I was dealing with my property management, our tenant in our condo decided to stop paying rent, planning the RS homemaking night.... let alone two small children by myself day and night. William would occasionally mention that he wanted a train birthday party and a thomas cake. I kept putting it off dealing with everything else on my plate. About a week before I got down to it and decided I better have a train party for him, with or without Billy here. So I got on oriental trading and bought some supplies and favors, sent out invitations and started jotting notes on what i needed. I decided to make a big taco salad with chicken, beef and black beans on the side, chips & salsa and fruit and a big pot of macaroni and cheese, hot dogs on the side for the kids. I thought about having puzzles out, the train table, thomas tents, baseball, monkey bingo and a tattoo station for things to do... not to mention the swing set and all the trikes, bikes, and wagons. Everything seemed to be falling into place quite nicely. As people would RSVP i would sew up and fill the treat bags to be handed out at the end of the party. Then the party got closer and I realized i hadn't ordered enough treats for how many people were RSVPing.... I was starting to stress about putting on this party solo and how i was going to make a thomas cake.... we got a little sick at the start of the week... the temperatures back here were hitting near 100*..... ahhhhh.

Then on Wednesday, the day before our birthday, Mom showed up! I was saved! She helped me run all the errands for the party, bake and frost the cake, prep and cook all the food and clean, clean, clean. I would not have been able to pull it off without her. The party was a success and even more people came than had RSVPed. The final count was 22 kids and 21 adults! Yikes. But somehow there was plenty of food and drinks, enough cake to go around and everyone enjoyed themselves. Even though it was 84 degrees, the people that came up from SB were pretty happy to be out of the fog and didn't mind so much. All the kids ran around and played and all the adults mingled away. I don't think I really talked to anyone.... just tried to stay on top of everything, but it was a train party for William and now it's over!

This was actually the night of our birthday- William opened presents from Truckee Grandma.That is a big thomas tent! He is on the phone telling Billy all about it!