Non-Traditional B’day Parties...

One of our family traditions is to have non-traditional b’day parties. For Veronica’s first few years, she and I shared our parties featuring such activities as wine and beer tasting. Eventually she outgrew those and started having her own parties. However, we’ve never hosted the average kiddie party where a bunch of kids are dropped at our house for a set number of hours to do a set activity, because we’ve always invited the entire family. Not only do I not deal well with schedules, but as the manipulative parent that I am, I’ve always thought it important for me to be friends with the parents of the girls’ friends. I acknowledge that I don’t always play well with other adults, so it isn’t always easy to find friends that mesh with the entire family. Through perseverance this strategy has worked well for us and has led to a lot of fun family parties with diverse themes such as swimming, gem mining, and canoeing. As you can see, not only did the kids mesh for her 10th party, but the parents did, too.