Thirty pairs of eyes stared at me like I was a rare Mewtwo appearing in the middle of a Houston humidity spike. My second-grade classroom smelled faintly of over-applied hand sanitizer and desperation. It was Jackson’s eighth birthday, and his mother had just wheeled in a cart of yellow cupcakes that looked suspiciously like they’d…
My living room in Atlanta currently looks like a glitter bomb went off inside a pet supply store, and I have exactly zero regrets about it. Last Tuesday, April 7th, my son Leo turned nine, and he hit me with a request that threw me for a loop: a full-blown pup-themed bash. Look, I know…
My kitchen counter is currently a disaster zone of leopard-print cardstock, half-eaten chicken nuggets, and a very confused golden retriever wearing a pith helmet. Last Tuesday, while I was trying to figure out if my 11-year-old, Sam, actually wanted a “cool” explorer theme or if he was just humoring my Pinterest obsession, I hit a…
My kitchen table in Chicago currently looks like a prehistoric graveyard, and I couldn’t be happier about it. My twins, Leo and Maya, just turned six on March 12, 2024, and they decided six months ago that they wanted a “T-Rex Extravaganza.” I looked at my bank account, saw exactly $52.14 in my “fun fund,”…
My kitchen floor currently feels like a flypaper trap, and my 4-year-old, Mia, is wearing more rainbow sprinkles than a premium sundae at Salt & Straw. We just wrapped up Leo’s 7th birthday last Saturday, April 11, and honestly, if I never see a sticky spoon again, it’ll be too soon. But looking at the…
Walking through the aisles of the dollar store on Devon Avenue last Tuesday, I felt that familiar Chicago wind rattling the windows while I hunted for the perfect shades of marigold and magenta. My twins, Maya and Leo, just hit the big double-digits—age 11—and their Encanto-themed bash on April 11th had to be special without…
October 12th in Austin is usually a toss-up between a crisp fall afternoon and the literal surface of the sun, and for my nephew Leo’s 2nd birthday, the weather chose absolute violence. I stood in my sister’s backyard, sweating through a vintage Wonder Woman tee, trying to figure out how to make superhero party decorations…
Help! How do you make an Easter egg hunt fair for ALL the kids? Hey GINYOU Party People, Hudson here, from Charlotte. My wife Sarah and I are gearing up for Easter and I’m already feeling the pressure. We’ve got five awesome foster kids right now – Ezra is 4, Maya is 6, Diego is…
March 12, 2024, is a date burned into my retinas. My living room in Denver looked like a glitter-bomb had detonated inside a marshmallow factory. Twenty-one seven-year-olds, including my daughter Lily, were vibrating at a frequency usually reserved for hummingbird wings. They were wearing Gold Metallic Party Hats and screaming about a mythical horse with…
My kitchen table smelled like a mixture of silver spray paint and slightly burnt pepperoni pizza on the afternoon of March 12, 2024. I looked at the 22 blank poster boards and wondered if I had finally lost my mind trying to outdo the fancy suburban moms with my shoestring budget. My twins, Leo and…
