A perfect parent's weekend...

This was a couple of weeks ago now, so it’s not as fresh in my mind as it was when it happened, but the event was important enough that I think it warrants documentation. You see, this was Mireille’s fifth birthday, her second in the United States.

For the weeks leading up to September 9, Mireille has been asking on a regular basis about her birthday party. She really wanted to have a party, with a bounce castle, and a cake, and presents! Hopefully she wasn’t disappointed. The only thing we didn’t really have was a cake, but we had a whole bunch of cupcakes! She didn’t seem too impressed, though, because it wasn’t a cake!

It was a standard birthday for us. Our hosting skills haven’t dulled, just our crowds have become smaller. We did get a bounce castle, and it filled pretty much our entire back yard, and had kids in it for about 8 straight hours! Around 15 people attended in all, including my cousin and his wife and a number of family friends, kids in tow. It was also the unveiling of our deck and newly finished bathroom to the masses! A year ago we had old versions of both of those, and an unusable deck.

The party was a success by most standards. We didn’t break anything except the piñata. Actually, that’s not true, I did break our glass top patio table when we were cleaning up after the party, but that’s a story for another time! Mireille seemed happy with her presents, which included a new car courtesy of her Grandpa and Grandma Grady and mom and dad, a karaoke microphone from her Uncle Blaine, and a lion tail and nose from aunt Maylee. The last was a perfect gift for Mireille since she spends about half of her time at home pretending she is either a lion or a doggie.

Honestly, it was nearly a perfect day from a hosting and parenting perspective. All the kids had people they could hang out with. Ethan had a couple of friends over, Quinton played with the bigger kids, and Mireille played with Owen and Rothco. After all of the main party goers had gone home, Ethan had a group of friends over to hang out and watch movies on our basement theater. They ate all of our pizzas and drank all of our sodas, but we knew exactly where they were the whole night. It was a good night!