Best party ever

It is funny when you realize you keep befriending the same kind of person over and over. I tend to make friends with women that are crafty, who actually enjoy planning events and are capable of juggling lots of projects without breaking into a sweat (unlike me, where these activities result in loud sobs). Paizhe, April, Stephanie...you know who you are with your perfectly designed bedrooms and hand-made Christmas cards/quilts/curtains!

At any rate, I love and admire these women and my newest impressive friend is Erin, who is mom to Zane (age 3) and tiny Kai (who is less than 6 months old). I met her husband, Peyote, at the park in the neighborhood- he is a freelance photographer and so I befriended him for T almost 2 years ago now.

So Erin (& husband Peyote, who I am sure deserves credit for some of it, but let's be real, we know who planned the party) threw this incredible dinosaur 3rd birthday party last Saturday. I got V all dolled up in her prettiest skull dress and off we went to Powell Drive Park!

We got there and I stupidly assumed there would be some park time and maybe some dinosaur themed snacks...was I wrong. Erin had no fewer than 5 activity stations- a handmade volcano for Pete's sake!- a sand and water table with fossils and dinosaur "eggs" that turned into spongey dinosaurs, a cave complete with flashlights for exploring, an activity table with dinosaur pictures to color and dinosaur stained glass...need I say more? There are at least 3 other things I am not naming that were also cool (not including all the educational signage she created) It was very well planned and AWESOME! V barely came out of the cave the whole time but I was quite impressed with the whole thing.

Here are the cakes THAT ERIN MADE! This picture doesn't do justice to how cool they looked in person.

She also had on hand dinosaur cupcakes (regular or vegan), tiny pb&j sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, fruit, veggies, juice boxes and even dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets which V did not eat but actually tempted me slightly (they were just so darn cute)!

This is Zane.

This is V hugging Zane.

There were probably 20 kids there of all ages and tons of adults...it was organized chaos and I couldn't stop marveling the whole time at how much work it must have been. I caught Erin in a moment of what I kind of hoped was stress (it just isn't natural to be able to do this so easily) but no, she was just as relaxed as can be and was only dreading clean up duty.

Erin gave out little dinosaur pinching toys (see picture, I can't think of a better way to describe it) and V dragged hers on the sidewalk the whole way home, resulting in some worn down horns which had to be repaired with 2 Diego band-aids at home. She was so worn out she slept for 2 1/2 hours when we got home...with the dinosaur of course.

Now that's a party!