My niece, Rapunzel (not her real name) is turning ten on Memorial Day but nobody ever can come to her party on Memorial Day so she had her birthday party today. Most of her class couldn’t come today either but that’s because unbeknownst to us, another boy in her class had a pool party at the exact same time. Pool parties seem to trump everything when you’re ten.

Nevertheless, I think the party was a huge success! I’m starting to think I like smaller parties better anyway. You get more time to play games and interact with all the kids. The children who came are the same kids who came last year and the year before. They’re keepers. I hope she stays friends with them forever.

We didn’t go crazy with decorations or party games. We could have but time sort of ran out. My sister-in-law, CC, was going to make malasadas (Hawaiian potato doughnuts) but they fell by the wayside and were not missed a bit.

CC made her famous bundt cake (It’s so yummy! The recipe is on her blog) and we decorated it like an island. I’m particularly proud of the palm trees. They are pirouette cookies stuffed with apple flavored sour punch straws on one end. Getting the “foliage” to stay in the pirouette cookies wasn’t exactly easy but some thread and a toothpick seemed to do the trick. The sand or “coral pebbles” are just rice crispies and the “lava” is chocolate ganache.

Besides more food than we could ever possibly eat, there were more presents than anybody could ever want. I didn’t include any pictures but I’m sure CC will link some later. My niece now has enough clothes now to go a whole year without ever wearing the same outfit twice. Yeah, I’m jealous. But she’s been growing a lot so this is a good thing. I remember those tween years well. I think a lot of clothes would have made it a lot easier for me back then. Don’t even get me started on the homemade jumpers my mom used to make me wear.

birthday party obstacle course from comfortablycrazy on Vimeo.

It was a really fun party. Especially the obstacle course. I was supposed to make a mermaid tail for the kids to jump in gunny-sack-style but I sort of forgot to get around to that. I don’t think anyone noticed. We found an out-of-date mail bag in the ever-present junk pile that is my mom’s carport. I know. Who has mail bags sitting around? Apparently we do. Along with everything else under the sun. But that’s another blog post.

For now we are going to sit around and be fat and happy that another party is in the can. The mess will still be there tomorrow.

Here’s something I haven’t done in a while, an illo! Remember the good old days when I used to draw silly little cartoons all the time? Sigh…Those were the golden oldies. Maybe those days will come back again when Baby Bug is in school or something.

Anyway, this illustration is actually for an invitation for my niece’s tenth birthday party that is coming up in May. She is getting so big. My sister-in-law, CC, is planning an under-the-sea party for her and I am very excited about it. As you know under-the-sea parties can be quite fun.

We still have all the decorations left over from that baby shower we did way back in 2006 so we are dragging them out of the great storage shed that is my mom’s house and recycling! My niece doesn’t mind a recycled party idea at all. CC is doing all the work this time though. I’m just in charge of invitations and maybe a pin-the-tail-on-the-mermaid-game or something fun like that.

I decided (and I got CC’s okay) that I will share with you guys. Yay! Free stuff! Maybe somebody out there needs an under-the-sea party invitation? Today is your lucky day! You can download a free pdf here. I’m also thinking of putting some up in my etsy shop later if anybody doesn’t want to print them out on their home printer because it is out of toner AGAIN or something. (Don’t you hate that? Toner is such a scam.)

This also made me think of another idea. What if we had a party-planning problem write-in day? You could send me an email about a party that you are planning and I will blog about it. Maybe I’ll come up with some ideas for those of you who need them. Maybe now and then I’ll make a free downloadable invite. Then we can get readers’ ideas too. How fun will that be?!! Almost as fun as Hair Thursdays except for people like me who forget about doing their hair in the morning because they are off and running with some other hair-brained (pun intended) idea.

I just haven’t thought of a good name for this hair-brained idea. I don’t think it’s something I can do every week, so I don’t need a name that goes with a day like “Soiree Sunday” or anything (though that does have a nice ring to it). Anybody have any ideas? Feel free to chime in with under-the-sea ideas too. It’ll be a group effort!

Speaking of hunting… we had an Easter egg hunt this weekend. Yeah, I know, you want to hear about Toby dressing up in full camo and hunting for some poor helpless little doves in Argentina but I don’t have any news yet so I’ll just share our Easter egg hunting stories instead.

Since we spent Easter on the plane heading back from Hawaii, Toby and I sort of glossed over the holiday. I don’t know if Baby Bug is even really old enough to understand the real meaning of Easter. She does understand the meaning of the Easter Bunny and candy though.

Oh yeah. The subject of candy has taken up a significant portion of her brain. She’s even gotten so bad that she doesn’t ask for cupcakes and birthday cake anymore. Now it’s candy this and candy that. Good thing she’ll probably inherit my super-strong industrial strength teeth that have never had a cavity to this day. But don’t worry, we’re brushing daily just in case she doesn’t.

Before Toby was even on the plane to Argentina, I had already called up my nieces and asked them to come spend some time with us. I hate being alone the first night when Toby leaves. Ever since my car got broken into, being alone kinda gives me the heebie jeebies. Of course my mom, sister-in-law and nieces were happy to oblige.

We’ve been up to all sort of hijinks with the niece-com-poops. Doughnuts for breakfast, three-layered pudding for desert, making play dough from scratch, an Easter egg hunt in the park, and of course plenty of beach time. If we keep it up the time will fly by.

Daddy who? Actually Baby Bug does miss her dad. Especially after spending eight days with him and getting LOTS of attention.

We took Toby to the airport early on Friday morning and she was more than happy to get dressed and hop into the car to go to the airport. I think she thought she was going on the airplane too. Since we built up flying so much for our Hawaii trip, she thinks it’s a fun roller-coaster ride or something.

She fell asleep on the hour drive to the airport and we didn’t have the heart to wake her up so she could say goodbye. The truth is, I was just plain selfish and I wanted her to sleep the whole way back from the airport because I hate playing the Fetch-the-Pacifiers game while I’m driving. Especially when I’m driving in traffic home from LA. So we let her sleep.

Well, you know what happened next. When we were about five minutes from home she magically woke up and then there were tears. A river of tears…

“Where’s Daddy?!!”

“He’s on the airplane”

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!! I WANNA GO ON THE AIRPLANE!!!!”

“I’m sorry, Baby. Not this time.”

“I WANNA GO ON THE AIRPLANE TO HAWAII!!! I want to go in the POOL! I WANT DADDY! I WANT TO GO SWIMMING….. Waaaaaaaah Wahhhhhhh Waaaaah!!!!”

On and on it went for the remainder of our drive home. I think it would have kept on going for days if I hadn’t master-minded my nieces visit to take her mind off the unfairness of the world.

She really loved the pool in Hawaii. I think it will be permanently branded in her memory.

I’m going to have to find a pool around here if I want to keep my sanity.