The floor of my living room in Beaverton looked like a primary-colored minefield last Tuesday morning. My youngest, Leo, is turning five, and his only request was a party where everything—literally everything—looked like a plastic brick. I spent three hours scouring the web for lego party supplies for kids while my four-year-old “helped” by dumping…
My living room floor still looks like a pit stop gone wrong, and honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Last Saturday, April 11th, was the big 9th birthday for my twins, Leo and Max, and I decided we were going full throttle on a Grand Prix theme without crashing our bank account. Living…
Living in a tiny two-bedroom in Logan Square with four-year-old twins is like living inside a pinball machine. Last April, specifically April 12, 2025, the pinball hit the jackpot. My twins, Leo and Maya, decided their shared fourth birthday had to be a Roblox “Noob” theme. I had exactly eighty-five dollars in the “fun fund”…
My living room looked like a rainbow exploded, and not the expensive, professional kind of rainbow you see on those over-polished Instagram feeds. It was April 12, 2025, just one day before my twins, Maya and Leo, turned five. I had exactly $35 left in my “celebration stash” after paying the rent here in Chicago,…
How we built a cardboard job site for 12 seven-year-olds for $68.42, with clipboards, tape lanes, and a dig wall that kept them busy for 18 minutes.
Last March, I found myself sitting on my living room floor in North Austin, surrounded by three different shades of red cardstock and a lukewarm oat milk latte. My nephew Leo was turning ten on Pi Day—March 14, 2026—and he had specifically requested a “Level 10” celebration that would put Bowser’s castle to shame. The…
My living room looked like a botanical garden exploded in slow motion. My daughter, Lily, who just hit the big twelve on April 4, 2026, decided that “Rose” was her entire personality for the year. Not just the flower, mind you. The color. The scent. The vibe. I spent three grueling weeks hunting for the…
Humidity in Houston is the natural enemy of paper-mâché, a fact I rediscovered on May 14, 2024, while thirty-two eyes stared at me in silent judgment. My fourth-graders at Oak Hollow Elementary had spent three days constructing what was supposed to be a giant, glowing atom. Instead, because I forgot to turn the AC down…
Rain was threatening to dump on our backyard in suburban Portland last May, but my middle son, Leo, didn’t care one bit because his tenth birthday was finally here. I spent three weeks stressing over the logistics of a backyard “Stadium Party” for sixteen rowdy boys who think they are the next Shohei Ohtani. We…
The air in Houston on March 14, 2025, felt like a warm, wet blanket, which was exactly the wrong atmosphere for my niece Sofia’s second birthday party where 21 toddlers were about to descend like a swarm of sugar-starved locusts upon a sea of pink decor. I have spent fifteen years teaching elementary school, so…
