When my husband and I had been married 3 years, we had a baby girl. My due date was in July, but she surprised us by showing up at the end of May - Memorial Day weekend to be exact. They put her in my arms, and I thanked God for our miracle, and then I thought, "This time of year is such a great time to throw a birthday party!" And it is! For the last 13 years we have had some doozies - each one more fun as the years go by.
For her 2nd birthday, we had a party at home and invited all of our closest friends. Many of them had children who were all playing together in our living room. Our living room had a big picture window showcasing the front yard. One of the kids took a break from playing to gaze out the window long enough to notice a wild rabbit that had hopped into our yard. "A bunny!" the child exclaimed. To which every other child hurried over to see it. As they were all watching the rabbit in sheer joy - our siamese cat Oliver sprinted over to the rabbit and proceeded to kill it in a very gory bloodbath. Of course all the kids were devastated - some even crying. I think in the end I was able to persuade them all that Oliver and The Bunny were only playing - and re deirect their attention as a friend ran out and threw the carcass out of the children't sight.
Right before her 8th birthday, our region had a huge, severe windstorm which uprooted our big old maple tree in our backyard. We had been planning on having the party back there, so we improvised. With the help of the power company, my husband cut the tree up and we arranged stumps in strategic places around the yard for games. The bulk of the trunk we left where it fell and we should have sold tickets for the kids to play on it. It was the biggest hit. We settled on a "Survivor" theme and made everything really rustic. We borrowed a projector and held an outdoor showing of Beveryly Hills Chihuahua - cause that screams rustic. During the day we decided to split the kids into 3 groups with an adult to walk throughout our neighborhood for a scavenger hunt. I would like to point out that my husband got the group of all very well behaved boys who stayed on the sidewalks and had attention spans, moving quickly and efficiently.
I had a fun group. It consisted of the same amount of girls, plus two extra kids I picked up somehow. A one year old little brother and a six year old little sister. OMGoodness. I had to dodge in and out of bumpy neighbor's yards and across pot holes like a stealth cougar - bouncing a stroller along. And the 6 year old, whose name is Hannah, kept running away from the group and running into the road. Every time. The next year when the baby could talk, he came to my house and sang the whole song "My Humps" to me by Fergie. At the lunch table. And when we bought our current house a couple of years later - who lives right down the street but Hannahwhokeepsrunningintheroad, and she and our daughter have become the best of friends. (She is now 12, and does not try to wander off on walks anymore.)
As she and her friends have gotten older, their tastes have grown a little more exclusive. We still enjoy parties at our house - but now the main attraction the girls want to do is toilet paper yards. I will go along with it - but it has to be people I know who won't get offended - and their has to be an adult present. Last year was our 1st year of actually doing this. We waited around until perfect darkness fell. Our 1st order of business was to hit a teenage boy down the street named Zach. But surprise to us! Bret had already called ahead and told them we were coming - so they were ready for us. As soon as the girls stepped two feet into their yard - OUT CAME ZACH AND HIS DAD WITH WATER GUNS! They soaked us! We retreated amid lots of squeals and my own two feel running faster than I had in years. We got home and regrouped. The girls plotted all sorts of mischief, which I ruled out. I said, lets just wait a little bit and then try again - maybe they will go in. Nope. We went back after 30 minutes or so and they got us good again. So we gave up on them - even though it was May, it was well after dark and the air was still pretty cool. So we decided to do Hannah's house. Which was strategically across the street from Zach. We ran into Hannah's yard and started the act of artfully draping t.p. over bushes (the girls had no concept of throwing it anywhere - in truth it actually made the yard look nice, they did all kinds of pretty designs.) But then - OUT CAME ZACH AND HIS DAD AGAIN, STANDING IN THE ROAD SQUIRTING US WITH SUPER SOAKERS!! Do they ever go to bed?? So I find myself boxed in to a backyard, hiding under a rose bush with 10 or 15 preteen girls. Afraid for my life, or at the very least - my clothes had just dried and I really didn't want to get wet again. Finally, that stinker Hannah, who lived there came out and told us that the coast was clear, we could come out. So we just decided to run home to safety - except the coast was not clear! She had set us up. This time they followed us down the road until we got to our house. Sheesh. They really didn't want anyone in their yard!
Of course we had not learned our lesson. That whole experience just taught the girls to go over to the next street. The next street was where a very popular male jr. high teacher lived. I let the girls loose on his yard. They got down to business, in what can only be described as decorating his yard by artfully draping more white, fluffy t.p. on his bushes and mailbox. Only thing is - someone had brought some chalk along. Some of them started drawing pretty pictures on his drive way-you've gotta love girls and how they choose to vandalize - when one decided to grab a piece of chalk and sign all of their names. I tried to erase her signatures with my shoe but it didn't really work. We went on to get a couple of other neighbors who I know really well, and I knew wouldn't mind. Then we went home. By the time we were finally dry and I had the girls settled in on the living room floor watching Disney Channel (bless their hearts) it was late. I went to bed and sank into unconsciousness. Sometime a few hours later I woke up the girls jumping around in the house and making all kinds of noise. I drug myself out of bed to tell them to go to sleep, only to walk down the hall to find them all asleep. I counted them - all there. And they weren't doing fake sleeping, they were all embarrassing sleeping - drooling, snoring, bodies contorted. I convinced myself that I had dreamed the sounds. Went back to sleep to only be awakened again shortly after to someone - and I am not kidding - ringing our doorbell. At 3:00 a.m. I looked out the door and didn't see anyone, but I did notice that we had been t.p'd, and they did not artfully drape it - they knew how to throw. But I was too tired to do anything about it, so I went back to sleep.
But when I woke up the next morning, and really looked outside - they got us really really good. And to do it one better , they had made three full laps around our house with fishing line, hung and tied together so someone not paying attention would fall into it and get all tied up. To this day, we still don't know who did it. Could it have been one of our unassuming neighbors who barely got any t.p at all? (I had the girls go and clean their yards all up the next morning). Could it have been the popular teacher who woke up to signatures on his driveway? Or could have been a maniacal teenage boy and his father who really really like to squirt girls and a mom with water guns? We never found out the culprit -who do you think it was? I will say though, that this year's party we did it all over again, but they weren't home, so we skipped their yard. Also, this year no one hit our house. All signs to point to the water gun wranglers.
This last birthday she turned 13, so we planned an extra special party. At home, of course, but with so many activities that I asked two awesome high school girls Esther and Alexis to come help us. They were amazing, but the person who really stood out at the party was Alexis's boyfriend Justin who tagged along. And I say that for this reason. Our theme was a fangirl party - we combined games and food from all of the popular book/movies/tv shows floating around that Tatum loves. We decided to have a Hunger Games game simulating the arena in the book, which to us was really just a tennis court. But I went to stores and bought a bunch of toy weapons and we threw them in the middle of the court - split the kids up and counted down for them to race to the weapons and then "kill" each other. After you "kill" someone, you get to keep their weapon/weapons. All the kids played, even the teenagers. But the party goers were 13, and almost all girls. Justin is a boy and is 18, but he didn't get that memo, and didn't event try to take it easy on the younger kids. He won, of course!
I have sooo many other stories, but their is never enough time to keep on writing, so I will have to stop here. I will have to pop this subject up again from time to time. Thanks for reading!
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