party time

I decided, since Magic Baby's birthday is at the end of February and Big Sister's is the beginning of April, we could get away with just having one party for both of them. ('Cause, really, would you want to host two huge parties within a month of each other? I thought not. Hell, would you even want to go to two kids' parties that close together? See, it was a good idea for everyone.)

I did let them each have their own theme, though. Big Sister (for the third year in a row) chose pirates (that Johnny Depp gets us all), and Magic Baby (after careful deliberation) chose fire trucks. Thus our combination Pirates-And-Fire Trucks Birthday Party was born. (Those go together, right?)

There was food,

and games

(a treasure hunt for the pirates)

(and a house 'on fire,' a.k.a. covered in little crepe paper flames, to be sprayed by the firefighters).

There was even the requisite pinata to be smacked around.

No hitting, Magic Baby. Um... except that. That you can hit. No mixed messages here.

I think I might have even seen some sibling love in there.

She's dressed as a dead pirate, with a pink skull tattoo on her face. He's wearing a shirt with a fire truck on it and his firefighter boots, which you can kind of see in the picture of them putting out the fire. BTW, he never takes those boots off.

All in all, everything went great. The kids were all well behaved, the food (from a local Italian restaurant) was delicious, the games were all a huge hit. And I wasn't even too stressed out (mostly because I had given up food and cake duty, and just bought the dern things). I've decided the combination birthday is the way to go, as is the not cooking (really, who was I trying to impress? Everyone knows I'm the worst cook ever... although I did make pretty some cool cakes in the past, if I do say so myself.) And who's even going to notice about the mix-and-match themes? I mean, pirates and firefighters might get together... like if a pirate ship was on fire? Someone would have to put it out, right? Right?