Austin in March is usually a dream, but on the morning of March 12, 2024, the humidity was already curling my hair into a frizz-ball before the first toddler even arrived at Zilker Park. My niece Maya was turning three, and she is—like every other toddler on this planet—absolutely obsessed with that little watermelon-headed boy…
My backyard in South Austin looked like a scene from a low-budget action movie on March 15, 2025, when I hosted my nephew Leo’s 9th birthday. The Texas heat was already creeping into the 80s, and I had nine rowdy boys dressed in tattered vests and plastic eye patches swinging wooden sticks at a cardboard…
My nephew Leo turned 11 on March 12, 2025, and I somehow agreed to host twenty of his loudest, sweatiest soccer teammates for a “Touchdown Tuesday” bash at our place in Zilker Park. My goldendoodle, Barnaby, was wearing a tiny referee shirt, the sun was actually shining for once in Austin, and I had exactly…
Austin heat in mid-March is no joke, especially when you’re sprinting through the aisles of a party supply store trying to find the perfect shade of cobalt blue. I found myself in this exact predicament last year when my nephew Leo turned twelve. My sister was drowning in work, so I stepped in as the…
I stood there. Sweating. The Atlanta sun does not care about your child’s birthday. I had 45 minutes before the first minivan pulled into the driveway, and my living room looked like a circus exploded, which, to be fair, was exactly the theme I had promised Leo for his fifth birthday. Being a single dad…
My kitchen smelled like burnt cornmeal and desperation on the morning of March 12, 2024. Maya, my oldest, was turning eleven, and she had decided—after months of acting “too cool” for everything—that she absolutely needed an Encanto bash. Not just any bash, but a sophisticated, tween-approved version that wouldn’t make her feel like a toddler….
Hey everyone! Connor here from rainy Portland, OR. Hope you’re all having a less damp day than we are! My coffee pot is working overtime because Diego, my littlest (he’s three now, can you believe it?), has decided he’s going to be an astronaut for his birthday next month. And not just any astronaut, he…
I spent three hours scraping neon blue icing off my baseboards last March. My daughter Chloe turned nine, and she decided her entire personality that month was “Rainbow Sparkle Professional.” If you think teaching 24 third-graders in a Houston classroom prepares you for a house full of 9-year-olds with sugar-induced zooming, you are wrong. It…
I am standing in my kitchen staring at a mountain of plastic coconut cups, wondering why I ever agreed to host eleven 11-year-olds in my house. The floor is sticky. My dog is hiding under the sofa. The real crisis actually hit about three days before the party when I was standing in the aisle…
Hay was everywhere. My Honda Odyssey smelled like a stable for three weeks after the “Great Backyard Roundup” of 2018, and frankly, I am still finding bits of straw in the floor mats. I learned the hard way that throwing a budget cowboy party for teen guests is nothing like doing it for toddlers. If…
