Two Despicable Parties

I survived another year of birthday-Christmas-birthday and lived to post about it in an untimely manner! As you can tell when you look very closely at my eyeballs, which are hanging permanently out of their sockets from me making my stress face, every round seems to come up even more quickly than the last.

Now, you may be asking yourself, what in the heck is wrong with this crazy pregnant lady? Just get a cake mix, some balloons and call it a day. I too have thought this exact same thought and though I've tried to convince myself, I just can't stay away from the siren song of the DIY birthday party. I love it! I love to bake things like cakes but I can't allow myself to have treats in the house on non-special occasions because I will eat them. All. No, like actually all. The crumbs of the crumbs will be slurped away. I also love to craft but the opportunities to make giant floating puffs of tissue paper and attach them all over your house are limited. I used to tell myself that I did all of this to save money as well but in reality, you can get decorations for so cheap these days that I don't think that's actually true. I suppose my biggest reason is that it makes me heartily pat myself on the back and feel like a fantastic mother, which doesn't make a lot of logical sense because truly alot of the moms I admire are the ones who just don't give two toots about this kind of thing. I think I just tell myself things such as "Well, I may be terrible at keeping baby books, playing games that involve lying on the floor, and I don't allow markers in the house, but I can make a mean streamer waterfall." And so, my friends, on birthdays I go all out. It is truly a time of celebration and near-divorce, as I run around the house throwing tape and hollering orders at anyone who is forced to help or listen.

This year, much to my cringing horror, Theo wanted his very first trademarked character birthday. Minions. I love Despicable Me probably even more than the next person but I just have a really hard time getting on board with this brand stuff. I can't help it. I don't care if I'm the last person standing who doesn't love these types of things but I just...don't. I decided to take inspiration from O Happy Day to try to minimize my pain but keep my kid's heart happy. Her advice was to throw in a couple key items but to just make the rest of the party your own. And that is what I did.

No party guests were harmed in the making of this photo. I just figured their parents probably don't want them associated with this madness.

I could not believe how easily this cake came together. It was absurd.

What always feels like much to soon after purging my living room of bits of candy canes, a billion baby Jesus's, and the inevitable styrofoam explosion that happens when you try to force your unwilling Christmas ornaments in the box, Lu's birthday shoots around the corner and surprises us. Just like her brother, she was thrilled to give me a half heart-attack and ask for a party to the theme of the fluffy unicorn from, yes, Despicable Me. Luckily for me, the people who make money from making plates out of these sorts of things haven't figured out just how marketable fluffy unicorns are, so this theme was left much more to my interpretation.

Just so everyone is aware, if Matt's first career choice doesn't pan out, he's well on his way to becoming a professional garland maker. Alright, so he only really twisted some things here and there and held up the string for me but I think he gets a B for effort. If he had toned down the noises that make it sound like he needs to get his appendix taken out, I might have have given him an A.

These tassel garlands had the bonus of sort of resembling unicorn tails.

There was alot more food than this sad bowl of chips, but I didn't have time to put it out before I took the photo. On special occasions, I do actually need to make getting out of my pajamas a priority.

Matt also helped with the streamers. By this point, he had stopped trying to fight me. What a stellar job he did too! We're quite a team. Me dictating, him hanging. Me getting frustrated at his slow pace and joining him on the hanging. Profesh.









Ok, so this is where I need to confess my deepest shame: I used a cake mix. From a box. The horror. Lu wanted a white cake because "dat is more like a unicorn" but I hadn't practiced my white cake making skills enough to trust myself to successfully create four layers. So we went the box route which felt a lot like cheating and tasted a lot like sponge. It looked pretty though! The cake topper was brought to you today by Matt, a tiny pony toy, a toothpick, a can of spray paint, and the word "Damn it!".

Look at those adorable fluffy unicorns! I made the horns out of a headband, foam paper, wrapping paper, and a stapler because my glue gun is no where to be found.

So there you have it! The nutshow is over for another year. My marriage is still intact (we even had a moment hanging up the garlands where Matt sincerely told me that he realizes that I am completely crazy and he still really loves me. So. Sweet!) Two extremely happy children have repeatedly thanked me for their parties which they "just loved" and have informed me that they have already started planning for next year. Hurray! Hopefully anyone planning a Despicable Me party of any kind will feel inspired by all of this, but as for me, I'm ready to hang up the scotch tape for a while.