Catie’s birthday party yesterday was so much fun. I’m really glad we decided to have the party at Chick-Fil-A. We had our own assigned person to take care of us, everybody seemed to have a really good time, and the best part? I didn’t have to clean up the mess afterward. Score!

I have to say, our neighbors rock. All of the kids were so good, and the moms are so much fun to hang out with (um, not that I had much time to sit down and chat, but still). I guess the perk of having the older kids there is that at this point, they’re all birthday party pros. They know the drill: play, eat, play some more, cake & ice cream, squeeze in a few more minutes of play, presents, then go home. The whole thing was over and done in less than 2 hours. Perfect.

As I predicted, Catie hated the Chick-Fil-A cow. She freaked out if he got within ten feet of her. But the older kids loved him, so it was fine.

Besides the neighbors, we also had Cat, Tony & Elizabeth there. Since Elizabeth is around the same age as Catie, I wasn’t sure how she would react to the Chick-Fil-A cow. Her reaction was… different than Catie’s, to say the least.

She freaking LOVED the cow. It took her a minute to warm up to him, but oh man. Love. She cried when he had to leave. Meanwhile, Catie was all, “Good riddance, cow. Don’t let the barn door hit you on your way out to the pasture.” It’s so funny, those two kids could not be more different if they tried. And yet they seem to like each other. Go figure.

My only two (tiny) gripes about the party:
1. I have no pictures of Dave at all because he was the one using the camera. He was there, I promise. We have witnesses.
2. You know how I was all excited about not having to clean up afterward? Well, it turns out, when all the kids bring presents for your kid, those gifts have to go somewhere after the party. And that somewhere is all over my living room. So there was still a pretty big clean-up job left for Dave and me today. Oh well.

But really, overall it was fantastic, and just so much fun. I guess I’m surprised because I thought having this big birthday party for a two year-old would be one of those migraine-causing, “sweet Jesus, remind me to double up on my birth control”-type experiences, and it totally wasn’t. It was busy, sure, but it was fun busy.

All the pictures from the party are here.