Birthday Parties

It turns out that I have an overwhelming obsession with planning parties. I had a feeling this would be the case when I was obsessed with planning my wedding, but then it kinda went away after we got married. We bought a house, and had a few parties...no intense urge to make EVERYTHING match and be perfect. Then came my daughter's 1st birthday, and there it was....I did everything in my power to create, for her, the PERFECT 1st birthday party..much like Tori Spelling does for her children's parties minus the thousands of dollars and catered gourmet appetizers! Well, her 2nd birthday party is on Saturday, and the obsession is BACK! I started gathering ideas and making notes in June. (Is that weird?!?!) Well, time went by, babies were born...you know how it goes. Now the pressure is ON to get allllll of my ideas actually created!

The theme this year is Dora. I printed a ton "coloring book images" of Dora, Boots, Backpack, etc about the size of playing cards. I had her color them (mostly without any help at all so they look great....she's very good at staying in the lines! aww.) So tonight I cut out each card, layered it on brightly colored cardstock and strung them all together to make a banner. Cheesy or cute? I guess I'll find out Saturday. I also made name tags for each child's party bag layered on the same cardstock with a picture of Dora and Boots. My very artistic brother-in-law made a toddler-size Dora, Boots, and Swiper. Dora will have a message bubble that says something about grabbing the party bags before Swiper does.

There are other things that I'm planning. I'll post pictures after. It's just a gosh-darn wonder, though, why I do this to myself. The stress and anxiety I feel right now about making the party perfect is a bit exhausting. Why not just buy the stuff at Party City and call it a day? ..save myself the stress. I'm not sure. I gather that most people won't even care or notice these things. My daughter certainly will not. That's not true. I'm pretty sure she will freak out when she sees a Dora that is the size of her sitting on our fire place ledge!! Aside from that, she won't notice a thing. I will probably still always do it, though. Maybe I could make it my job. THEN, I could become rich and actually have Tori Spelling-style birthday parties. How amazing would that be?!?!