A few weeks ago I thought it would be really fun to throw a party at our house for all the preschool aged kids at church who weren't in school to exchange Valentine's with people. I was a little nervous because it was the first time since we've lived in our new house where I've really thrown myself out there and invited a lot of people over, and I was really hoping that it would be a success.
As it turns out, the party went over so well that there is talk about repeating it for St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and any other holiday we can make up between now, and when school gets out in May. There were a total of eight moms and thirteen kids, and everything went seamlessly. When we threw Jay his birthday party over the summer, I didn't do a good job of leading the kids through the activities, so it was kind of just chaos the entire time.
This time I took charge from the beginning and directed the moms to the kitchen right when they got there so that their kids could decorate their Valentine's Day boxes. We had a wide spread of stickers, markers, and glue where kids could create their own designs, and when everyone was done, and their glue was dried, we headed into the living room to pass out cards and play some games.
I was originally going to do two games, but because things were going at a good pace, and I didn't feel like I needed to scramble to add more time, we just stuck with one, and then headed back into the kitchen to eat. While we were all playing games and passing out cards, Derek was in the kitchen cleaning up, and very carefully organizing all my craft supplies. I didn't even realize that until I went to reorganize everything the day after the party and everything was already perfectly back in it's place. Bless him for that, bless him.
I kept things really simple for the food. I bought three boxes of muffin mix the night before and whipped up three dozen muffins. I then dipped some pretzel rods in chocolate, and then in sprinkles, and called that good. Marshmallows also got the same dipped in chocolate and then in sprinkle treatment. I then took a Wilton Edible Food Marker and wrote cheesy Valentine's Day sayings all over a bag of clementines, and the food was complete.
This really was such a fun way to get a big group of moms together to chat and have fun with one another, and bonus points that with 13 kids in the house, the only squabble to ever happen was when Jay got upset with someone for touching his balloon... which he proceeded to hold for the rest of the party.
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