My nephew Leo turned twelve on March 14, 2026, and if you know anything about pre-teens in Austin, you know they are basically miniature adults with much better skin and significantly more attitude. He decided he was too cool for a typical “little kid” party, but he still insisted on a Miles Morales theme because…
My kitchen floor in Atlanta was covered in a fine layer of gold dust on March 12, 2024, and my five-year-old son, Leo, was currently trying to eat a plastic Pterodactyl. I had spent three hours staring at a folding table in my humid garage wondering how many centerpiece do I need for a dinosaur…
My kitchen smelled like a weird mix of salt spray and vanilla frosting last Tuesday, and honestly, that’s just life as a mom in Portland when you’re three days out from a toddler birthday. I was standing over a pile of turquoise tulle, wondering why I thought DIY-ing ten tutus was a good idea while…
Help! My “budget” pirate party for a 10 year old is turning into a shipwreck. @audreydoesparties: Okay, you guys. I need some serious intervention here. My husband Rafael keeps giving me “the look” every time another Amazon box shows up. We’re fostering a wonderful 10-year-old, Lily, right now, and she’s just obsessed with pirates. So,…
Houston in August feels like the surface of the sun, so planning a space-themed party for my nephew Leo’s 10th birthday on March 12, 2025, felt like a much-needed mental cooling. I have spent fifteen years corralling twenty-four third-graders at a time in my classroom, so you would think I had the guest list math…
Twelve-year-old boys are basically giant puppies with better coordination and a sudden, inexplicable interest in expensive electronics. My twins, Arjun and Ishaan, hit that milestone on March 12, 2026, and they didn’t want a quiet dinner. They wanted a full-blown Mushroom Kingdom in our living room here in Logan Square. I looked at my bank…
My living room floor looked like a Pepto-Bismol bottle had exploded during a Category 5 hurricane. It was August 14, 2025, and my daughter Maya had just finished her ninth birthday bash. I sat there, surrounded by a sea of fuchsia wrapping paper and half-eaten cupcakes that looked like they’d been through a blender, realizing…
My backyard looked like a hurricane hit a glitter factory by 2 PM on Saturday, March 12, 2025. The Austin sun was beating down on my patio while twelve sweaty kindergartners tried to stage a mutiny over the last blue cupcake. This was my nephew Leo’s 5th birthday, and I had volunteered my home and…
My kitchen floor was a literal sea of lime green crepe paper on the morning of March 12, 2024. Leo was turning five, and in his head, our living room needed to be a pixelated forest or the world would basically end. I had exactly two hours before eleven kindergartners descended on my house, and…
Twenty-two sticky hands were reaching for the same bowl of lukewarm popcorn when I realized my living room smelled less like a “cinematic experience” and more like a gym locker after a humid Houston middle school track meet in mid-August. It was March 12, 2024, and I had foolishly agreed to host a “Spring Break…
