Amelia's Birthday Party

It has been brought to my attention - at least 10 million times over the past few years - that Amelia has suffered greatly because she has never, ever had a friend birthday party even though Samantha has had one - yes one, and Jonas has had a couple.  And by a couple, I mean quite literally 2.  I know, I am a bad Mom.  I don't like birthday parties.  They're too much effort, and we certainly don't need more stuff, but yes, I occasionally feel guilty about depriving my kids of this one little thing. (Let's just keep in mind, however, that we do celebrate pretty big around here on birthdays and always celebrate with family.  I just haven't ventured out much into the friend party thing, because, well, why do I have to?)

So finally, this year for Amelia's 10th birthday, I relented and said we could have a birthday party.

In looking at our schedule one night, I figured out that the only time we could fit it in, between water polo, spring break and a YSA Moab trip, was to make it happen in like 4 days.  And Amelia's birthday is still over 2 weeks away.  (I know, you are really impressed with all of my pre planning, but seriously, our lives are so crazy right now, that I felt pretty good about managing to fit it in at all.)  We called the pool and they had exactly one slot still available for this weekend, so we took it. (I had to go with something that would be minimal work on my part, you know.)
And because the girls were so busy swimming the whole time, and because the battery on my camera died, I have exactly 2 photos commemorating this momentous occasion.  (Amelia's first ever birthday party and all I have is 2 pictures.  Seriously, I am a slacker Mom.)
Well, so here they are enjoying their pizza, with Megan and Samantha displaying their best picture faces.

And here they are gathered around Amelia while she opens presents.  (Yay me!)

They all had fun and no one was really ready to go when we were being kicked out of the party room so, in hindsight I would have worked around that problem a little bit and arranged for everyone to stay longer.  And since we were on a tight time schedule, I had to make everyone stop swimming to come and eat pizza and open presents.  Cupcakes ended up going home with the girls.  (It is obvious that I am a rookie birthday party Mom.)  Anyway, I hope it at least appeased Amelia's birthday party appetite for a couple of years, because that may be it.  We may be a one and done birthday party family.  I'm already filled with dread for the requests that are sure to come from the younger kids.  Apparently I'm in the market for someone who loves to throw birthday parties, someone who loves to put together party favors and the whole deal, because according to my calculations, even if we were one and done, I still have 2 to go.  I can hardly wait.