send in the mustached clowns

The birthday party is coming and – I won’t lie – it’s gotten a bit bigger than I anticipated.  I’m still planning on simple, but the guest list is a bit uh, not simple.

We’re happy so many people love her.  We’re happy so many people want to celebrate her.  We won’t have to buy toys for years.

That’s what I keep telling myself.

I opted to follow the precedent set by my sister-in-law and invite the great aunts that we see often to the party (she has invited them to both of her kid’s first birthdays – we’ll figure out next year when it comes).  That led to mother-in-law suggesting I also invite the great aunts/uncles from her side of the family (who we see every other year at Christmas).

So, invitations out and the rsvp’s start coming.  And there are the pluses.  You know – T’s dad PLUS two will be attending (probably his other two kids).  T PLUS one will be attending.  Mr. Mouse’s maternal aunt PLUS her boyfriend.  Etc. Etc. PLUS Etc.

None of the pluses are inappropriate or rude additions, I just hadn’t really thought about it.

The party will now require two birthday cakes.  (Baby Swiss still just get a slice to herself to do with as she pleases.  I imagine she will please to eat some, throw a good portion on the floor and use the rest as chocolate hair product.)

Two birthday cakes, in my mind, equals zero ice cream.  Because once you add ice cream, then people have MORE options.  I don’t know about you, but when I simplify I reduce options.  The option will be chocolate cake or rainbow colored white cake (I will probably try a scratch version of this recipe because scratch cake is usually SO. MUCH. BETTER. and not really any harder to make.)  That’s it.  The option will not be to sauce or not to sauce your pulled pork; and then with which variety of sauce.  The pork will be sauced already.  Deal.  You may choose your chips and your beverage.

I am the party nazi.  Don’t my parties sound like fun?

and, do you have a costume I can borrow for next year?

Here is the required picture of the baby in the Halloween costume.  We didn’t do anything for Halloween other than hand out candy at home.  Baby Swiss wore her costume all day.  She didn’t know she was wearing a costume.  For all she knew, this was just a new outfit for the day.

Since I’ve already admitted to being totally lame and not doing anything special for Halloween – unless you count picking out all of the gross candy to give to the trick-or-treaters (here’s your banana laffy taffy, kids) – I’ll go ahead and also admit that we went the non-creative/cheap route and landed on ladybug because it was what our friend was when she was Baby Swiss’ age and her mom said we could borrow it.  I can just hear Baby Swiss now, “Mom, you are soooo laaame.”  Except it’s probably lame to say “lame”.

Also, just for fun, here is a picture I took of Baby Swiss on Friday.  It was a nothing special day, but I haven’t taken many pictures lately and the camera was out on the table, so I figured I might as well.

No, your eyes don’t deceive you, my wittle tiny baby looks like a kindergartener in this picture.  When the heck did that happen