My silver 2018 Chevy Silverado still has a faint ring of gold spray paint on the tailgate from the Great Crown Incident of 2024. That was the year my daughter Maya turned eight and decided she wasn’t just a birthday girl; she was the “High Empress of the Heifer Pasture.” I thought I could be…
My living room smelled like fermented grape juice and cheap face paint. It was 3:14 PM on Saturday, October 14, 2025, and I was staring at a pile of discarded pizza crusts that looked suspiciously like fingers. Leo, my eight-year-old, had decided he wanted a “Living Dead Picnic” for his birthday, and as a single…
Sophie’s ninth birthday party almost ended before it began because I forgot the most important thing. I sat on my kitchen floor in Portland last May, surrounded by three caffeinated kids and a dog who thought the streamers were chew toys, realizing I had zero encanto treat bags ready for thirteen demanding nine-year-olds. It was…
I stood on a wobbly kitchen chair in my humid Atlanta living room on October 12, 2024, wondering why I had committed to a DIY “web-slinging” ceiling. My son Leo was turning two, and in my head, I was going to be the Tony Stark of party planning. The reality involved me sweating through a…
My son Leo turned six last month, and like half the kids in Denver, he is currently obsessed with catching them all. I spent three weeks obsessing over safety certifications for plastic toys and hunting for the best deals because, frankly, I refuse to spend five hundred dollars on a party that will be over…
My classroom floor in Houston is currently a graveyard of blue glitter and tiny plastic snowflakes. I just finished hosting a winter-themed birthday for my niece, Chloe, and her nine third-grade friends on February 14, 2025, and I am exhausted. Between the Houston humidity making the “fake snow” feel like damp cotton balls and the…
My kitchen looked like a crime scene on the morning of October 12, 2025, and I only had three hours before twelve screaming eleven-year-olds descended upon my suburban Portland living room. My oldest, Maya, decided she was “too cool” for bounce houses this year, demanding a high-stakes spy thriller experience instead. I stood there with…
The rain was absolutely hammering my kitchen windows last Tuesday, the kind of grey Portland downpour that makes you want to cancel everything and hide under a duvet, but Sam was turning seven and he had specifically requested a “terrifying but also sparkly” prehistoric bash. I was standing there, three espresso shots deep, staring at…
Leo stood in the middle of our Zilker Park picnic spot on October 12, 2025, with chocolate frosting smeared across his nose like a hungry grizzly bear. He was turning five. The Austin sun was beating down, the humidity was doing zero favors for my hair, and I was frantically searching for a woodland party…
Glitter is essentially the herpes of the crafting world. It never leaves. Once it enters your classroom or your living room, it settles into the floorboards and waits for your grandchildren to be born so it can attach to them too. Last March 12, 2025, I learned this the hard way when Sarah, one of…
