Lily’s birthday party was yesterday.  Once again, I was staggering through a kid party feeling like crap.  Frankly, I’m done with the not feeling well.  This time, I’m rocking the kidney pain and general trunk-centered ill-health.  Luckily, birthday parties for seven year olds are pretty easy to pull off on a nice day.

She went with a vaguely dog-related theme,  so I made a few goodie bags so that I could put the photos on the emergent Goodness Gracious website (I swear, we’re still working on that):

And I finished the girly-colored Happy Birthday banner (Janet has the more neutral one):

Once all the guests arrived, I had them color in a shrinky-dink tag to put on the dog collars I’d gotten them.  Of course, the test shrinky-dink worked perfectly and then when I baked the girls’, they came out…ruffly.

Then they decorated their “dog bowls”

Then cake–yes, purchased cake.   Between the kidneys and the gluten intolerance, I just wasn’t feeling the need to make a Super Mom cake this time.  Of course, she was more than happy to order an ice cream cake from Brusters:

Then pressies:

She got a LOT of art supplies, which is welcome as she does a LOT of art projects (i.e. strewing of art supplies around the dining room).

Then the pinata, which was a cereal box I’d cut the front and back panels from and covered in tissue paper and wrote “Puppy Chow” on.  No photos, but I assure you it was not exciting.  Of course, there were 8 party girls and 3 boy sibilings around, so after the mad scramble I had to say “Okay, everyone STOP!  Now put all the candy in the middle and I’ll divide it equally.”  In the end, each kid had a very reasonable 4 or 5 piece of candy.  Among those candies were “candy sticks,” otherwise known as “candy cigarettes that don’t have the red tip and don’t come in an overtly cigarette looking box, but which fool no one.”  That’s Ben’s favorite candy, of course, so I didn’t think twice when I saw them at the Dollar Store.  Then I saw the girl gang and thought, “Hm…it’s possible that not everyone will think this is hilarious…”  But really, look:

Smoking is so far outside the realm of what people are allowed to do that pretending to smoke is not much different than…well, the running around with Nerf guns that the boys were doing.

So, I get them some little fake liquor bottles and we’re all set, right?  Oh, how our standards fall as we age and our children become numerous…

Anyway.  I have a booth at the Middletown Heritage Days festival on Saturday.  I’m already behind on the number of bags I wanted to have done, thanks to my body’s utter betrayal.  I’m going to disappear into the sweatshop, though, and try to get some more done.  Of course, it’s also Fair Week, which means I’ll be obligated to take the kids one afternoon each.  I’m not feeling the fair this year, so you know I’m a mess.  Of course, I can’t eat any yummy fair food, so what’s the point?  WHAT IS THE POINT?  pity me, for I am pathetic.

I’m sure I’ll be back with fair photos at some point….