Birthday Madness

My neighbor, Jenn, put it best: It's a good thing that Margaret only has one birthday a year, because I doubt I could survive another one of her parties anytime soon.

The little-girl birthday party ... it's a force to be reckoned with.

The little-girl birthday party followed by the McCracken's patented frontyard beer drinking bonanza/potluck BBQ ... is, well, almost more than I could handle.

And I do say "almost" because I did handle it. I forced myself (with every fiber of my being, I might add) to clean up almost everything and even mop the kitchen floor before I went to bed ... which was around midnight (but not before the requisite trip to Weiner dog at 11 for Bill's chili-cheese dogs).

The day started with Mar running into our room and whispering in that super loud, little-kid whisper, "It's my birthday party today."

We gave Mar her present from us before the party.
We got her this keyboard. It's kick-ass sweet and has karaoke on it, too — that's Mar singing "Falling in love with you."It was awesome. She was reading and singing at the same time and doint so with gusto. And believe me, you haven't lived until you've heard a 6-year-old sing "A hard day's night" with attitude.

She had a good time at her party. They played games. They drank sugared juice. They ate Barbie cake.
Margaret opened the many, many presents that she received.
I've seen this clustering of the kids around the birthday girl while she is opening presents before. I've yet to see an effective manner for dispelling the cluster. No manner of encouraging them to sit or stand back ever works, the lure of the present in the state of being opened is greater than the fear of having someone else's mom tell them to sit down.

This is the second year that the small keg we got was not enough and more beer had to be procured. Mar protested being forced to have another keg party, but I think all-in-all, she and everyone else had a good time.