A Birthday for The Goose

I need to do another Housecleaning post, but until then, I'll talk about The Goose's birthday week. She doesn't turn 4 until Monday, but she's had a whopping three celebrations already. It might take me a while to get through since Evan and I are watching the remake of Fright Night and it's about a million times better than I expected. I'm having a hard time tearing my eyes from it.

Evan's mom and stepdad came down from Seattle for the MLK weekend. Gretta and Papa Jim are always welcome visitors in our home, and they seemed happy that we had actually moved in, with couches and dining room tables and sane children. We didn't want to get into the rut of having weekend visitors where you all sit around and don't do anything, so we planned some outings.

On Sunday, we went to Universal Citywalk, which is flashy and overcrowded, but very LA and makes you feel like you're on vacation. There's a spectacular Cineplex there.

(About a month ago, I took Arlo there when he won a Peacebuilder award at school and got a free kid's meal at one of the many chains there. I took him to see the early showing of Chipwrecked (thank God it was an early, cheap showing) and then we went out for lunch. Well, we would have gone out for lunch, but he spilled his Icee on his pants and I ended up bringing him home in my emergency clothes -- Lucy's panties and leggings. )

Back to birthday weekend.

We saw Beauty and the Beast in 3D, and it was much better than I remembered. The story was great, even if some of the animation was a bit sketchy. I heard a review on our local NPR and they pointed out that the secondary characters had been drawn by the junior animators, and you could tell they were still finding their feet. The flaws were really glaring in 3D. But the kids LOOOOVED the movie and Evan and I enjoyed it as a step on the way to The Little Mermaid.

We've gone to Buca di Beppo's for years in Seattle. We even had a surprise wedding shower there! I never realized until years later that it's actually a chain, and Evan and I were happy to discover one in Universal Citywalk. It's surprisingly good food for a chain and it's familiar for all three generations of our family.

Oscar looking soulful.

A candle for the birthday girl.

Attacking her ($12!!!) slice of cake.

The next day, Loretta and Jim took The Goose to the American Girl cafe for a special birthday lunch. Of course her American Girl Bitty Baby, Dora, accompanied them. 

Papa Jim has no biological connection to The Goose, but she favors him more than any of her biological relatives. The eyes, the chin, the dry wiseass wit. 

When they left, I told Evan "I bet your mom gets a tiara out of this." I was right. My mother-in-law rocks a tiara. 

I love these two pictures because they prove two things: Papa  Jim takes some good pictures, and Gretta and The Goose adore each other.

The cake.

Checking out her reflection in the mirrored cakeplate.

My cousin-in-law once removed, Barbara, said that when she comes back, she wants to be one of Jim and Loretta's grandchildren. I agree completely.

We had a nice dinner with Loretta and Jim and had a blast watching the Golden Globes with them. They caught an early plane the next morning back to Seattle just in time to get snowed in!


The next weekend it was time for Lucy's birthday party. Lucy has been into tea parties lately, and I figured I could throw a good, simple party around that. So we emailed out some invites to a few friends from preschool and I went into my craft closet.

Jewels, check. Pipecleaners, check. Flowers, butterflies, glue spots, check. Old fabric from Ikea that I meant to make into curtains and tulle that was around Lucy's crib, check.

Evan spirited the kids away to the zoo and I went to work. I tore out the tulle that used to drape The Goose's crib and covered our new dining room table with the tulle and fabric. I used some of our leftover colored paper and made flags to string with ribbon and spell out "Happy Birthday Goose."

I took some advice from Design Mom and bought a bunch of 99¢ mugs at Ikea and decorated them with Porceline pens. You draw on the design, let it sit for 24 hours, and then bake in your oven for a bit to set. I drank some wine and scribbled on a flag motif (taken from the Ikea fabric) and scrawled out the kids' names.

And yes, I pulled out our wedding silver. We haven't used it in years. The kids enjoyed the fanciness and I enjoyed seeing them use it.

Auntie Jojo showed up and spirited the boys away to the playground for an hour. Auntie Jojo, she is the bomb. 

I pulled out jewels from my craft bins to hide and then string for jewelry. We decorated hats with flowers and butterflies.

But as every parent of a three- or four-year-old could predict, they wanted nothing to do with the carefully-planned themed crafts. They wanted to play with the toys. And climb on the bunk bed. Just like every other party we've hosted in the past eight years. (Thanks to my friend Ashley for some of these photos.)

 We finally corralled them around the table for tea. One of my dearest friends out here is British, and she is the sunniest, kindest person I've met in a good long time. She kept insisting on bringing something, helping out, and finally I said okay! I can't handle the pressure of making tea for a Brit, so you get to make the tea for the tea party. She made a lovely bit of weak tea (weak for the kiddos)  in my new teapot and brought me flowers to boot.

 I love these pictures. All the moms swarming over the table; the kids just sitting there and enjoying all the attention from all the other moms. We had jelly and cucumber sandwiches, hunks of ciabetta, flour tortillas rolled up with cream cheese and ham, and gingerbread cake, plus a huge fruit platter that I completely forgot to put out until everyone had stuffed themselves with gingerbread. I reveled in all the moms (and Evan!) catering to each other's kids. It made me very, very grateful for our preschool that introduced us to all these lovely folks.

We broke for a bit of chaos. Auntie Jojo dropped off the boys, who were eager to play butler with the cake. I had planned on making some lazy cupcakes, but I saw this gorgeous chocolate ganache cake at Whole Foods and knew that I had the cake for my dark-chocolate girl.

(Arlo has his hands over his ear because he doesn't like loud noises, like singing or clapping.)

After cake the kids all went right back to the Toys That Were Much More Fun Than Their Toys Since They Weren't Theirs and Evan and I got to talk to grown-ups. There were first time moms, both young and older, (and I am older than they are so they shouldn't be offended) and a seasoned mom with kids older than mine that has been through 7+ years at Grandview. How I have missed talking to my fellow moms. I am so grateful we lucked into this school and these parents.

Everybody eventually drifted off and there were many breakdowns afterward. Our boyos aren't so wonderful at being happy for their siblings and we had to do a bit of damage control after the Goose opened her presents. Even though the boys have no interest in a Rapunzel doll that has light up hair, it was SPECTACULARLY AWFUL that The Goose had one and the boys had none.

It was a lovely party. The one thing I need to do is to schedule a grown-up tea party for all the grown ups when our kids are at school.

My Goose will turn four on Monday. She's a lucky Goose to have many family and friends to party with.