My kitchen currently smells like a mix of chlorine, spilled apple juice, and that specific brand of sunscreen that claims to be tear-free but definitely lied to me. My three kids—Leo is 4, Maya is 7, and Sam is 11—are finally passed out after a marathon weekend of hosting the neighborhood. Living in suburban Portland…
@violet_partymom: Hey GINYOUTH fam! Oh my gosh, I just HAVE to share about Aria’s 5th birthday party last weekend! My sweet Aria, she’s our middle one, totally obsessed with rainbows right now. Like, everything is rainbows. So naturally, for her big 5th, it had to be a rainbow party! I’m a preschool teacher here in…
Chloe stared at me like I had three heads when I suggested a bouncy castle for her big 1-2. It was a cold realization for a dad who prides himself on being the “fun one” in our Atlanta neighborhood, but apparently, 12 is the age where everything you love becomes social suicide. I spent three…
I stood in the middle of the party supply aisle on March 12, 2026, clutching a crumpled list and feeling the weight of a dozen twelve-year-old girls’ expectations. My daughter, Chloe, had decided that her twelfth birthday wouldn’t be a typical pre-teen “mall hang.” Instead, she wanted a “Retro Equestrian Bake-Off,” a weirdly specific mashup…
Carla is my neighbor, two houses down. We wave at each other over the fence and that’s usually where it ends. But in January she knocked on my door holding a stack of printouts and said “Dante wants a Super Mario party and I don’t know where to start.” I made her a cup of…
Twenty-two toddlers in a Houston backyard during a humid March afternoon is exactly what my nightmares look like, but my nephew Leo turned three last week, and my sister begged for help. I have spent fifteen years corralling fourth graders at my elementary school, so I figured a group of three-year-olds would be a breeze….
My sister called me in tears over a deflated checkered balloon, which meant I officially became the designated headwear coordinator for my nephew Leo’s fourth birthday. The theme was “Vintage Grand Prix.” Very Austin. Very cute. Finding the perfect race car birthday cone hats that actually fit tiny, sweaty four-year-old heads without disintegrating into papier-mâché…
The rain was coming down in those thick, grey sheets that only Portland can manage on a Saturday in March, and my kitchen looked like a glitter bomb had gone off in a spandex factory. It was March 14, 2025, the day of Sam’s big 6th birthday, and I was currently elbow-deep in a bowl…
Thirty minutes before the bell rang on March 12, 2025, I stood in my Houston classroom staring at a lopsided grocery store sheet cake that looked like it had been through a tropical storm. My student, Leo, was turning eleven, and in a fit of over-ambition, I had promised his mom I would handle the…
Leo stared at me with those huge, expectant eyes while the Cocomelon theme song looped for the eight-hundredth time in our little Decatur bungalow. It was June 12, 2024, and my son was turning four. I sat on the floor, surrounded by green streamers and a half-eaten sandwich, staring at a blank guest list and…
