Classmate's Birthday Party

It's always tough when you're a parent to decide whether to let your child go to a birthday party, because they get so many invitations. So in general, you let them go if you know the child, and you know their parents, but what do you do if it's for a child you don't know much about, and you haven't heard your child talk about?

Well, that happened to us this weekend. Lauren got invited to a birthday party by a classmate, Kaylee. I haven't really heard Lauren talk about Kaylee, and she's not one of Lauren's friends who moved over from Pruneridge to her new school. But it turned out the party was being held at "Pump It Up" which according to Lauren all the kids have been talking about at school. So after some pleading and begging from Lauren I agreed to let her go, and sent our RSVP to Kaylee's mom.

As most of you know, I try to buy toys throughout the year so I don't have to spend the exorbitant amount of money toys cost close to Christmas. I generally buy after Christmas when toys are deeply discounted. So I had a stash of presents ready to go, and made the mistake of asking Lauren to pick out a present to give her friend Kaylee. She couldn't decide, and decided everything we had we had to keep as a present for herself. So in the end, she let me make Kaylee a doll's dress and give her a small "My Little Pony" as well. I ended up making not only a doll's dress, but made a matching pashmina and purse as well.

So on Sunday night we drove down to Morgan Hill to attend Kaylee's birthday party at "Pump It Up". "Pump It Up" is a large play area filled with inflatable rides, like bounce/jump houses, large slides, and obstacle courses. All the kids got to play through the arena for an hour and half. They ran from ride to ride, and Lauren was especially fond of the tall inflatable slide. It was steep, and went really fast. She was so tired after playing she couldn't even climb up the slide for one last ride down, by the time the kids were called to go in the party room for cupcakes. And of course, she fell asleep on the car ride home, but not before declaring that her next birthday party would be at "Pump It Up".

We also got to see Lauren's older aunts and cousins this weekend. My older sister's family spent the weekend in Santa Cruz camping on the beach, so we drove down Friday after work to have dinner with them in Capitola. Traffic was horrible so we arrived about half an hour late. They had already picked a restaurant near the water, Mr. Kebab. Lauren enjoyed the chicken kebabs and rice, along with pita bread. We went to a coffee shop afterwards and Lauren got to have some dessert, a chocolate chip cookie.

My sister and her family also stopped by Sunday morning on their way back to the Sacramento area, so Lauren got to spend some more time with her cousins Daniel and Amelia, including a walk to our local Starbucks. They also played on Lauren's play structure, and Lauren also got to show off her new Barbie jeep (my craigslist bargain find).

So all-in-all a very busy weekend.