My Posse

Do you want to know one of my birthday party secrets?

Seriously, I will share the single reason that I enjoyed myself at my girls' birthday party.

Even when my husband was working all day, both the day before the party, as well as the day of.

Even when I did most of the prep, cleaned my house, shopped for the various supplies to make our crazy messy crafts, by myself.

Even when my kids were on a serious Birthday High, having had no less than 4 birthday cakes and 43 presents to open in the weeks previous.

My secret is my Posse.


Firstly, my mom. She is Captain-behind-the-scenes. She ran to Target no less than 3 times in the 24 hours before the party. She washed children's hands and feet, was cook and busser, as well as dishwasher. She was the see-what-needs-to-be-done-and-do-it Posse.

Then there was the overnight help. Auntie Dawn and Uncle Lee agreed to have the girls sleep over at their house the night before (and dealt with the sleepover blues in a certain 4-year old), took them to the beach the morning of the party, took them to lunch, played all afternoon, and delivered them home, precisely 30 minutes before the party started. When they arrived, they were clean, happy, and smiling.

And, their mother was clean (I got a shower!), happy (I had peacefully organized a party and made cakes without 2 girls with the energy of drugged puppies at my ankles all day), and smiling (I was SO glad to see them!).

And as if THAT wasn't enough, when she got to the party, she organized the painting crafts. Remember what I said about how much I don't like to plan crafts? Well, this one, I planned. I just didn't execute it. Dawn did.

Can we all just have a moment of silence for how incredibly fabulous this was.

Thank you.

And she took charge and took the messy shirts and rinsed them out and dryed them in the dryer while we were eating dinner. And... and... and...


You'll have to find your own Aunt Dawn, of course. You can't have her. She's mine.

And her husband is no slacker, either. He helped with at least 22 things as well.

Thanks so much, y'all. I don't know what I would have done without any of you. And I don't know if it would have been possible to have a better Posse.

I pretty much just bossed my Posse around all day.

Actually, that's not 100% true. Dawn did a fair amount of bossing me around, too... which I needed. She's good like that.

We'll call her Sargeant-worth-her-weight-in-gold.


After the party, as I was watching my mom finish cleaning the kitchen, turn on the dishwasher and wipe down the counter, I said, "How in the world do moms put together birthday parties like this without a Posse of people helping them?"

Dawn piped in, "They rent out a room at Chuck-E-Cheese. They do NOT do all of this."

So there's my birthday party tip of the year. If you're in the market to do a birthday party,

Git yerself a Posse.