The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...

I am exhausted today. Yesterday, my husband and I had a "small" BBQ for our daughter's first birthday. We planned very carefully for the party - how many people to have, how much food to buy, how many drinks, etc. Needless to say, like many of our best laid plans, they often go wrong.

The trouble started when I was food shopping. I planned on baking a chocolate cake and following a recipe that I once saw on the back of a Stonyfield Farm yogurt container. When I went to pick up the yogurt, however, Stop and Shop was out. So I called my husband who so obligingly looked up the recipe online for me and read the ingredients. Of course I get home and realize I forgot to buy two of the ingredients. So I need to make another trip, which is good, because my husband decided we did not have nearly enough hot dogs, hamburgers, and rolls! Through all this, I surprisingly keep my cool (I would usually be extremely irritated at this point).

So anyway, the cake ends up being made, and the next morning I uncover the cake and there is a big crack running down the middle that opens up to the depths of the cake below. I frost over the worst of it, but the "B" in "Birthday" of the writing is still distorted, but oh well, I still stay surprisingly calm (cooking/baking mishaps get me the most upset - while pregnant I had a meltdown over stuffed peppers that I dropped - it was ugly).

There ended up being about 20 adults and 9 children (although some were infants), which is not a huge crowd for a party, but our house is not very accommodating for that number. We were banking on people sitting in the backyard, but then it turned out to be about 100 degrees in our area, so everyone who wasn't grilling with my husband was squeezed into the kitchen and living room, where the AC was blowing and the kids were running around. My husband only had to grill a fraction of the food, we have tons of leftover pasta salad and mac-n-cheese, and a year's supply of rolls. But it's all good because everything that wasn't cooked is in the freezer (although I admit that I couldn't stop teasing my husband about his insistence on "more food! More food!" that ended up being very unnecessary.)

It ended with tons of clean-up, toys everywhere, and blue frosting spotted on both of my cream-colored couches (it came out-whew!). However, I surprisingly kept my cool (maybe because there were still some guests over when I discovered the frosting). There were so many moments that I would normally have had a little freak-out, but I stayed level-headed. And today, I am just thanking God for all of the friends that shared in celebrating my baby's first year of life, and for keeping me grounded through the little mishaps that I encountered. Because in a year, five year's, ten year's time, I won't look back and remember the extra shopping trips, the disastrous cake, the chaos of people crammed into our house, the tons of leftovers, or even the frosting on the couch. I will remember that we had a great time with good friends and family who all wanted to show their love for our daughter. And I will be thankful.