Pajama Pancake Birthday Party

Gracie-Pie turned SIX!!! Hard to believe she is six already (doesn't everyone say that every year about their kid reaching a new age) True, though, time flies when you are having fun and Gracie is 100% fun!

Last fall we had three birthdays in a row to celebrate, and celebrate we did! Charlie turned a year old in August, Libby turned three in September and Fenna had an October birthday. Poor Gracie had to wait until spring, but she didn't forget that she was due a big party too! I asked her for some birthday party ideas figuring she would want a princess party and hoping we could grab some cupcakes and do it at the park. I'm all for easy parties. She had a completely different idea:

Gracie suggested that we have a pajama pancake party. All her friends could come in pajamas and not even brush their hair. I pondered the idea and thought, hmmm... pancakes are cheap and easy, she won't drive me crazy all day waiting for her party, it'll be over before noon and they'll have all day to run off the sugar high...You know what, kiddo, that actually sounds like a good idea!  So, that's just what we did!

Early on Tuesday morning, the day before her real birthday, we had her pajama pancake party.  8:30am.  It's ok, you aren't the first person to think I'm crazy.

One thing I dislike about birthday parties are all the presents. Everyone brings a gift for the birthday kid, and nobody else gets one. So, there's the one overwhelmed kid who learns to feel entitled and 15 jealous kids. Plus, the birthday kid gets a lot of crap that the birthday mom does not really want her kid to own. And, in response, birthday mom has to set out a bunch of thank you goody bags for the gift giving guests. In the goody bag is a bunch of junk they'll just toss out before the end of the day. Eh, it's all a bunch of hooey if you ask me.

My favorite part of parties are the friends and getting together, watching the kids play and have fun together, visiting and mingling amongst the adults, everyone smiling and having a good time being together. That's the celebration! Gifts, arg.

But, it is a birthday party and in the spirit of birthday parties, we have to have gifts. Gifts are fun and exciting and they are a big part of how birthdays are celebrated. We decided to do it just like we did for Libby's birthday: a gift exchange. Everyone brings a gift, they all trade, everyone gets a gift. Nobody gets 15 gifts, nobody gets none, no goody bags. For Gracie's birthday, we decided to do a book exchange to celebrate her new reading skills. This might work best with the age range of kids.

We invited most of our friends from baby group and Gracie named off several classmates that she likes best. We ended up with 35 people in attendance, and only a couple of the moms wore jeans. Everyone came in pajamas! It was great! The kids loved the pajama party. A couple of little girls told me how they decide which pajamas to wear. Pajama fashion!

I baked cranberry bread, pumpkin bread, and cake pops. We had eggs and sausage. We set out fresh fruit too: strawberries, bananas, apples and cutie oranges. And, I made three different kinds of pancakes: Apple-cinnamon, banana, and white chocolate with chocolate chip.  The cake pops looked so easy, but they were a complete pain in the arse! Maybe there is a learning curve involved, but they were sure a lot harder than they look. With Fenna's help, we managed to bake and decorate over 40 cake pops, and we made a stand to hold them up. This wasn't nearly enough! People gobbled them up and wanted more. Apparently, they didn't taste too bad. Our party guests were hungry! They all ate well and loved all the pancakes and all of the food. It was great!  We also went through a gallon of Sunny Delight, half gallon of apple juice, a quart of orange juice and three pots of coffee.

After everyone seemed to be well fed, the kids were screaming and running through the house like a bunch of wild animals in pajamas. I had a gate across the stairs to keep children from going upstairs and being out of view, and we had Fenna's bedroom door shut downstairs (as usual to keep the kids out of her personal space) and the door to the laundry/garage shut also. Those doors also had child-proof doorknob covers on them. But, kids went up the stairs, into Fenna's room and into the garage. They were hyped up and not staying out of closed areas of the house. Unbelievable! Between flipping pancakes and riding herd I was pretty busy.

I opened the patio door and shooed the older kids all outside to run off some of that wild energy.  No wonder Gracie likes her school friends so much, they are just like her! Loud!

After they ran off some steam and all the adults had a chance to visit for a bit, I brought them all back in to sing Happy Birthday and get a cake pop. I couldn't get the candles into the cake pops since I covered them in melted chocolate instead of frosting and the cake pops were now hard as rocks (and yet, everyone loved them), some one suggested I poke the candles into a loaf of pumpkin bread. Perfect!

Time for presents! I herded them all into the living room and tried my best to get them to sit in a circle. My living room is too small for that many people and it was too chilly to do this outside, so they just had to make due with the small room. The circle looked more like the shape of scrambled eggs, but after trying for a while I just gave up. They were to play a game to exchange their gifts, but they were such a wild bunch who wouldn't listen well, so I just had everyone trade willy-nilly. I asked the moms to help and make sure their child traded and each kid had a book to open, and to make sure their children got something appropriate i.e. board books for toddlers and try not to give "Fancy Nancy" to a boy. I had extra books that I got when the bookstore at the outlet mall was liquidating their inventory, just in case the trading was a flop. The kids all traded and everyone got a great new book! One kid didn't want to trade, he was thrilled when I told him he didn't have to.  It was chaotic but it was awesome! All of the moms loved the book exchange. I heard some commenting to each other about trying it for their kids' birthdays too.

One mom who was asking me about the book exchange had some valid questions for me: How did the birthday girl feel about it? Obviously, she's happy and doesn't have any feeling of jealousy. She was smiling from ear to ear. How did I hear about doing this? Oh, I just made it up. It worked for Libby's birthday and it seemed to work again. Doesn't she want any other presents? Yes, she does. But we will give them to her. That way she only gets a few from us, and a few from her big sisters and grandmas and I get to control what those gifts are. I know her grandmas won't give her glitter glue and her sisters won't give her beads that her nephews will choke on. What are you getting her? A two-wheeled scooter, a tent and a movie.

I received a lot of thank yous and compliments for the party. People really enjoyed it. I'm so glad! I kind of figured they did since they all ate a lot and I had to kick out my last party guests at 2:30pm because I had to be somewhere. It was great! I love having an awesome party, what a fun feeling it is to know we had our house full of friends and everyone had a good time.

*afterthought: my camera sucks. Every picture is blurry! After destroying my last Canon powershot, my husband got me a Panasonic point and shoot. As you can see, it doesn't do a very good job at all. That's the last time I stray away from a Canon!