So I had a birthday party for my son a month ago …

And in finally looking through my pictures I realized that I don’t have that many.

I promise he had more fun than this pictures shows.

Woops.  I was kind of busy.

About a week before Sebastian’s party Chris decided that it needed to have a theme.  Now, he will tell you that he just suggested it, but everyone knows that by ‘suggesting’ he totally meant ‘Get on it, Woman.’

I’ve never considered myself someone who has ‘theme’ parties.  I mean, I like them and I enjoy the result, but I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it because I am not that disciplined and also kind of lazy.  And yet here I was.

It took us forever to actually pick one out.  We started with dragon themes and Viking themes and finally, FINALLY settled on a camping one.  My idea, by the way.  And then I went nuts.  The kids were with grandparents so I had time to spend searching around online for different ideas of what I could do.  I started big, with games and party favors and s’mores.  (What?  That doesn’t sound that big to you? Try putting it together in a week with your husband spending all of his free time doing homework instead of keeping the children out of your hair.  Don’t judge me.)

Water balloons!

Throughout the week I whittled away at everything until I think we had a pretty good set up.  I got rid of the ‘Pin the Fire on the Log’ game because I was afraid of the end result looking like a flaming piece of shit.  And we decided that a nature hike wasn’t necessary because they could just walk around the backyard themselves whenever they wanted.

Scavenger hunt!

But I did keep the gift bags full of snakes and bugs and homemade trail mix and flashlights and glow sticks and candy.  We used a scavenger hunt for that one.

And the day dawned bright and record-breakingly hot, topping out at 107, I believe.  We actually weren’t that stressed because I’d done as much as I could have early, including cutting out about a million cloud, tree, and camping-related pieces for a garland that I sewed and glued myself, and cupcake decorations that I taped to toothpicks myself.

Scavenger hunt!

Because I am insane.  My wrists were pretty pissed at me for awhile after the party.  And no, I don’t have a picture but it's still hanging up in my back room if you want to come over and look at it. 

We had the pool set up and a sprinkler and water balloons.  We had a canoe casually placed in our backyard and a tent that kept blowing over.  We had the fire pit set up, partly for the scavenger hunt and partly for the s’mores that never actually got made because I forgot about them.

A thing of beauty. At least by my inexperienced standards.

And we had pizza and lemon cupcakes and chocolate cake that I decorated myself. 

And we had a damn good time.  The scavenger hunt had clues like “When you’re done canoeing and want to rest, where do you go? When you want to cook the fish you caught, what do you use?”  The final one was “When you come home from camping and you want to take a nap in the living room, what do you do it on?”  You guys, I am so creative!  But we had to keep the gift bags inside because the trail mix had chocolate in it.

As I was carrying Sebastian up to bed that night he squeezed me extra tight.  And then he said ‘This was the best birthday ever!  Thank you for giving it to me!’

Totally worth all of the stress.