#4: More May Nephew Time

My brother's oldest boy turned 3 towards the end of May, so they decided to have a party at Cabela's to celebrate. I did find myself wondering who actually wanted the party there, since I think all my nephew really wanted was balloons and cake. But it's my brother's favorite place, close to their house, and there are conference rooms available for meetings/parties/etc. so Cabela's was set.

My SIL did a great job decorating his cake--she went with a camping theme and even made a little log cabin out of tootsie rolls. Of course, later, I debated whether I'd eat any cake because as soon as any kid arrived, they went over to look at and try to sneak licks from the cake. My inner germaphobe was cringing!

Before the party, I wasn't sure what a Cabela's birthday party might include, particularly for the under-5 set. Turns out that everyone gets a little cup of fish food to throw into the pond, and a couple of tokens for the "shooting" range. The shooting range is basically like laser tag. . .there's a room set up with a fake log cabin facade, fake covered wagon, and stuffed (taxiderm-ied?) animals. There are little targets set up all over the room, and a bar across the front of the room where people stand and take aim with the fake guns. My mom refused to take part in this portion of the party, since she hates hunting and doesn't like to see her grandkids being encouraged in that manner. Instead, she took the younger nephew to the fish pond to feed more fish. That was his favorite part of the party, even though he didn't exactly have great aim or distance to his throws. I really only got to see him during the cake-eating portion of the party, when I took my turn walking him around the room while letting him hold my hands for extra support. I bet he'll be walking on his own by the next time we see him.

The birthday boy was in a very good mood, although not long after we arrived, he started playing with something and called over his other aunt to see what he was doing and my heart broke a tiny bit that he wasn't looking for me. That other aunt--who is married to my SIL's brother--didn't actually hear him, so I made sure to scoot on over and play with him. I guess she must see him more than I do, since she isn't working and she takes their daughter (who is about a month older than youngest nephew) to see the ILs quite a bit. Of course, I still want my nephews to like me best.

During the party, SIL asked me to help her when it came time to open gifts by writing down the name of who gave my nephew which gift. He received a lot of gifts--her extended family lives in the Austin area, so there was quite a crowd at the party. I'd say there were 10 - 15 kids and probably 30 adults. The kids swarmed during gift opening, and I was caught in the middle. Apparently, they ALL want to help open the gifts and then play with each one immediately. At various times, SIL and I each asked all the kids to take a step back and sit down, but that would only last a minute or two. This was good training for me for any future kid parties. We'll wait to open gifts until after the party! Really, it would be my first choice for guests to not bring gifts. How much plastic crap does one kid need, ya know? I'm not anti-toy (or even really anti-plastic toy), but I just think so many toys are a waste. I read a blog a while back about having book parties for the kid's birthdays: each guest can bring a favorite book, and one of the party games is trading around the books until they each have something new. Or, the birthday kid gets all the books as gifts. I actually wouldn't mind doing that for my own birthday!