Another Successful Birthday Party!

Yesterday we celebrated Isaac's birthday a couple weeks early with a great music themed party with family and friends!  Since Isaac's birthday is Christmas day we usually have his party a 2-3 weeks before Christmas to separate it from Christmas and to have it at a time when people aren't quite so busy with the holidays and can join us to celebrate Isaac.  This year as Isaac and I were talking about what the theme of his birthday party should be we talked about either cars or music.  I think at one point he asked if we could do both, but I told him we needed to pick one and he chose music which I was excited about because Isaac has always been all about music!  He loves to sing and he loves all instruments, but especially the guitar and drums.  I thought it would be fun for the kids to have a parade with instruments.  So, I had a banner that said Happy Birthday Isaac that the kids could decorate for the parade.  They had fun doing that and it looked really cute.  Then they got their coats on, each picked an instrument, and headed outside.  I tried to get them to line up on the side of the house, but it was a little chaotic with 9 kids as I expected it would be. None of the kids (except my niece, Kate) wanted to hold the banner because they were all holding instruments.  I needed to hold Hayden so he could keep up with the bigger kids so one of the moms helped Kate hold the banner.  They walked down the sidewalk playing their instruments, went across the street, and back towards our house.  It was a short parade (pretty cold out), but hopefully the kids thought it was fun.  Then we had lunch which consisted of pizza, chips, and fruit salad followed by cake.  I debated about whether to have Isaac's cake made or make it myself.   I thought that I wouldn't mind making it, but that I wanted it to go along with the theme and I didn't think I would be able to find any cake toppers that were instruments.  I looked around and as I thought I didn't find any so I decided to order a cake from Publix and let them draw a guitar and drum set on the cake.  Then when I was looking for decorations a man that worked at Party City suggested that I go to music store that sold instruments to see if they had anything that I could use for decorations.  I went to a music store in Buford and didn't find decorations, but they had instrument ornaments!  I saw a drum set and guitar that I knew would work perfect for cake toppers and cancelled my cake order at Publix.  It was so cute to see Isaac's big smile as all his friends gathered around he and the cake and sang Happy Birthday to him.  Isaac then opened his gifts which included two saxophones.  He also got a microphone from grandma and grandpa which was perfect for our boy who loves to sing!  A while back he had told Mimi (Terry's mom) that he wanted drums so she told him that she might get him a drum set for Christmas.  This was a big deal and something that came up often in conversation from that point on.  He was so excited and just couldn't wait to get his drums at Christmas!  Well, Mimi and Papaw decided to surprise him and give him his drum set for his birthday.  He was very excited and sat right down and played.  All the other kids then took turns.  It was funny to see some of the kids holding their ears, it was quite loud!  All in all I would say it was another great birthday celebration.  I have to say though that during the planning for it as well as at times during the party I was a little frazzled.  This year more than any other I have felt a little stressed trying to plan his birthday party and get ready for Christmas (as well as getting ready to go out of town in less than a week)  We have thought about the idea of having his party on his half birthday in the summer or waiting until January to have his birthday party.  We will see which he would prefer, but I need to remind myself not to do it in December again.