Gwyn and Cal’s Joint Birthday Bash

Our babies are getting old! Insert crying mama face. 🙁

Months before Gwyn turned six and Cal turned four, we attended a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese where Gwyn and Cal learned that only the birthday child is able to go into the Ticket Blaster. It was then that these two deemed this event a must and therefore declared Chuck E Cheese the place they would like to have their birthday party at.

We have always had their birthdays at home, but after they each continually talked about wanting their birthday at Chuck E Cheese, and not changing their minds, I decided to let go of the reins and just enjoy the ride.

I enjoy party planning. I enjoy baking treats for my kids’ parties. And I enjoy bringing a themed party together. But, with a new baby at home, a busy time in our lives, and BOTH of our kids wanting the same party away from home, I deemed this the year of the outsourcing. And the year of the simple.

And since their birthdays are so close, we made it a joint party.

They both decided they wanted a “tree” cake, and after a little more prodding, I was able to discover Gwyn wanted hers to look like a Cherry Blossom, her favorite tree. So after finding a picture online of a cherry blossom tree cake and getting Gwyn’s approval, I took the picture to Rosauers (our local grocery store) and they made the cake look exactly like the picture. And for CHEAP!

And for Cal, he wanted his tree to look like the tree in our front yard, so when I showed him a picture of a cake with a tree house in it, he immediately declared that was the one, and once again, Rosauers nailed it.

Once we arrived at Chuck E Cheese we were greeted by the manager who escorted us to our area. Since we were celebrating both of our babes, they each got their own table to sit at with their friends. They were also given a cape and glasses/a crown to signify they were the birthday boy and girl, and they instantly felt special. They were also given a TON of coins to go play games with. Side note- If you book a party on a Sunday, you are given 100 extra coins. AND, if you book online, you get an additional 20. We still have unused coins…

And you guys, we could not have lucked out more. We had our party on the morning of Bloomsday, which is a huge race held in our city. Therefore, Chuck E Cheese was EMPTY. And it was AMAZING! The only kiddos in there pretty much belonged to our group, making it a dream scenario.

We sang to the birthday boy…

And to the birthday girl…

And ate pizza and cake.

We were also assigned two “helpers” who kept the party going, which was truly amazing. They helped serve all of the kiddos, refilled drinks, kept food coming out, cut and served the cake, cleared the tables, boxed up extra food and cake, and made sure we had garbage bags for gift wrapping. So, so nice!

They got Chuck E. to themselves, and really had a wonderful time running around with their friends.

And then…. the Ticket Blaster. What they had been waiting all of these months for. Gwyn did a pretty decent job in gathering tickets. But regardless, they received a 100 ticket voucher in addition to whatever they collected. It looked really hard!

And Cal was hilarious! He flapped his arms in the machine, not really able to grasp a single ticket, but came out with a huge smile on his face.

Franklin was a trooper during the party, and spent the majority of it snuggled up on my mama.

We were surrounded by wonderful family and friends in celebrating our big girl turning six, and our big boy turning four. We all had a wonderful time, the only prep work I did was fill goody bags, we showed up and partied, and then left the mess there.

While I was a little sad to let go of the reins for this big party, it was also pretty nice in the end. Everyone left happy campers.