Jayden’s 4th Birthday And Letting Go Of Perfection

I’m realizing more and more that sometimes, I just have to let go. For the past 3 years, I’ve stressed over Jayden’s birthday parties. Family parties. With no kids. I always wanted them to be special though. I always wanted to bake some fancy cake and provide a unique party spread. Last year, I stayed up all night long trying to decorate a dinosaur cake. The first cake stuck to the pan, so I had to bake another. By the time our guests arrived, I was putting the final touches on the cake. I was drained. I never edited the very few photos that I took from the party. I didn’t blog it or host the giveaway in conjunction with my dino-masterpiece. I still need to do that and I keep guilt-tripping myself. Bottom line, I became overwhelmed and I shut down. And that’s a recurring issue that I have and am no longer allowing to take over me. I’m giving myself a do over.

As Jayden’s 4th birthday approached, I angrily said that I wasn’t going to host a party because I didn’t want to be bothered with the planning, the cleaning, the cooking… sans sleep. I changed my mind and thought having the party at Fuddruckers would be fun, but that wasn’t very frugal. I moved the party to Greg’s grandmother’s house. I planned on grabbing a cake at the grocer and ordering catered food because there was no way I was going to be bothered with cooking anything. Anything. Well, that catered food was not in the budget, so I ended up frying up some chicken drumettes and fries an hour before the party (for freshness). We had grabbed a carton of ice cream, some italian ice, and bagged salad to go with… some cheap party decorations, including a plastic table cloth *gasp*, the day before and called it lazy party.

This party won’t end up on Pinterest, but it was the easiest party I planned to date. Jayden enjoyed it no less and that in itself made it a success. Oh and the food disappeared pretty quickly and I had most of the cupcakes to myself :-).

The obligatory birthday cake video. Yea, I don’t like being sung to either.

These photos aren’t my best. I can’t stand having to shoot with my flash or kit lens, but I’m letting go of perfection.

Jayden’s Thomas birthday cake was provided by Walmart, so I didn’t have to spend hours in the kitchen crafting a cake. They also compensated me for trying out their custom cake bakery service as a voluntary participant in the Walmart Moms program. Can you believe that a cake so pretty was only $19? #winning! Oh and that was an opinion so you should know it is my own. Disclosure and all.