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February 8, 2007

Party Planning

Gosh. I have so many things on my brain I don't know where to start.

Tomorrow is my middle child's birthday. He'll be ten years old. His vision for his birthday was a night away with the family in a hotel and then a party with friends and family when we got home. I explained to him that this would take more money than we had and maybe we should just do a party at home. He said that was fine. I think he just simply wants to celebrate, which is cool with me. Understandable.

I find it interesting to see the development of my kids as they get older. My oldest son has only had one or two actual birthday parties. He doesn't really care for them. All my friends are different and aren't really friends with each other He tells me. He doesn't want some big fuss and would rather just have a family meal, open gifts and be done. Easy. Sophia, the eldest of them all, wanted to have a freakin' quinceanera when she turned 15 and a sweet sixteen this year. Please, make a fuss over me. The twins are only seven and they're still in Chucky Cheese mode.

So Mr. Middle Child wants something fitting to his personality. An open house of friends and family, some his friends, some Sophia's friends, some Dad's friends, some his brother's friends. Just people. Controlled chaos, really. Too bad it is Winter and our house is so small that it can barely hold the seven of us comfortably. And it is falling apart at the seams. No, let us not even think about that.

Let us think about the menu that I haven't even really planned because, well, I was thinking that possibly he'd change his mind? I really don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking. I was diligently studying two time-honored Groovy Mom traditions:

Denial
Procrastination

He wants Italian Sausages. With buns. OK. I can do that. Then he wants a Tres Leches Cake (Three Milk Cake). Cool. I can do that, too. But the problem is that those suckers run $25 for a round cake. We buy them because the kids love them. We usually get that size for our family alone. A sheet or half sheet would cost us close to a hundred dollars. And if he's inviting half of creation to this party... I need a bigger cake. So I'm contemplating, I don't know.. maybe making one. It is probably crazy since I've never done it before. I'm a little scared about that. But this is a great opportunity for me to make one. Or two really.

Most of the recipes look pretty similar. But this one from Recipezaar calls for a cake mix rather than making it from scratch. The box recipe looks easy but I'm hesitant.

I'm just going to take the plunge and do it. Make the cake. I suppose I could buy them, but this is my good excuse to try and make the dang thing. Si.

So, Italian sausages and tres leches cake. Yum. I need to get some other stuff in order, but I'm just not in the mood to plan anything. I don't even have a gift for the kid yet. Bad, bad mommy.