Somehow my little boy turned twelve. I’ve basically always been a 12 year old boy. I love the cheesy jokes and laugh WAY too much when somebody toots or trips when they were walking. The older my kids get the more I like them. So far having a preteen has been endless fun.
This year, we decided to look completely at what Asher loved and plan a party from there. This seems obvious, but if I’m honest, most of my kid’s parties have been just as influenced by impressing the grown ups as reflective of our children’s desires...{thank you Pinterest for equally inspiring and defeating us}. This year, we planned to take 7 boys {and miss priss} camping. Only one of the kids had ever been camping before. No big deal. We weren’t afraid to take newbies....until the weather forecast just kept getting worse and worse. When the chance of rain went to 90% with lows in the 30s, we talked to Asher who agreed. We had to cancel it.
Fortunately, we had a secret weapon. We had planned to take the boys to a gem and mineral mine to dig for treasures on Saturday. I scrambled with amazingly flexible moms and we revamped the plan.
I love this picture. It captures the worst best birthday ever. The rain had made the mine MUDDY. Preteen boys and mud....lets just say we didn’t bring enough towels for the ride home. 😂. They dug and climbed. They ran and they yelled. They had so. Much. Fun. They found treasures of rose quartz, beryl, and aquamarine.
When we finally drug them out of the mine and started to load up, the cupcakes fell out of the car, so that. We picked up pizza and the elaborate plan was to find a park to eat it. So we did. We sat in the grass...we didn’t have plates. They survived. Then the boys ran around and played. We looked up to find them peeing in the bushes in spite of the thousands of signs that let us know the park was under video surveillance 😱🤭. They laughed and tooted and drank 5000 Gatorades. I didn’t have hand made decorations. I didn’t even send invitations. Yet I think this was one of the best parties we’ve ever thrown. I think it’s because I got to jump in the mine and dig with them. I got to play and I got to just be present.
I love being extra. LOVE it. But today I learned how fun it is to let that go sometimes.
