Super casual simple park birthday

When your daughter has a gaggle of friends you find yourself at lots of toddler parties. Indoor, outdoor, fancy, plain - parties of every shape and size. For Leeloo's 2nd birthday I wanted to do something simple. I decided that we would just have a morning in the park. Not even the bigger park that we usually attend, just a small little neighborhood park down the street, which is usually empty.

The chica's birthday happened to be on a Friday, so I set the date for the party on the next day, Sat from 10-1. I also thought that, since she's blessed with so much, we should just have a book exchange, and then everyone could go home with something. Park, book exchange, maybe some snacks, oh and a piñata (because it's required), easy peasy.

Oh, and if we were going to have a book exchange, the kids needed a reading space, so I thought, why not make a teepee that the kids could sit in? The piñata also had to be handmade, because the ones in the stores are super cardboardy and you need a chainsaw to break them. Piñata, teepee, park, snacks, a cinch.

Then I started the invite list. Friends, family, our friends with kids. It soon grew to over 40 people. So snacks became a little more involved than I initially thought. Fruit, and sandwiches, but those are boring, maybe sandwich skewers, with star shapes? We also needed veggies, so veggie rolls, Yeah. And for dessert, cupcakes. But I didn't want to buy them - because that is entirely too simple. I wanted angel food cupcakes with strawberries and a whip cream frosting. But whip cream melts - so a mascarpone frosting. Which meant I needed to buy a piping tip too. Super casual simple park bday.

Did I mention that I also hosted Thanksgiving at my house? We had a Halloween party, then we went to visit Arizona for a couple of weeks, followed by Thanksgiving, and her birthday was a week after. No pressure.

It was mostly all under control until the monday before. That's the day that a friend asked me if I had looked at the weather (which I never do). She said there was a chance of rain. Great.
So everyday after that I checked the weather. Mon: 15% chance. No biggie. Tues: 40% chance, I sent out and Evite warning that there might have to be a plan B. Wed: 60% chance, I had to actually start thinking about a plan B. Thurs: 100% chance of rain on Sat (with the temp in the 50's), this is where I may have had a bit of a freak-out.

I thought about all logical indoor alternatives. I had a cafe say they could accommodate us (but what do you do with two year olds in a cafe?), and I also had a very nice friend offer up her house (which I declined and then told her the size of the guest list). Ultimately, I had to bite the bullet and postpone the party by a day (Sun: 0% chance of rain). There were a couple of cancellations, but mostly people were flexible.

Saturday morning we woke up and it was sunny. Seriously. Bright blue sky and sunny. At this point I was cursing the gods - or a least the meteorologist. However, by 11:30 it was pouring. We would have been soaked. My faith was restored.

By Sunday the rain had cleared up. It was still way colder than we're used to (in the fifties), but it was sunny and not too soggy. In the end there were only two families that couldn't make it, and the rest of the day went smoothly. Just another little birthday in the park. No big thing.

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