My living room in Austin looked like a blue glitter bomb exploded on November 14 last year. It was my goddaughter Zoe’s 11th birthday, and despite being a “cool tween” now, she and her friends are still secretly obsessed with a certain Australian cattle dog. Finding the right bluey party hats for kids turned into…
I am standing in my kitchen in the middle of a humid Atlanta afternoon, covered in enough gold glitter to be visible from space, and I am wondering where my life went sideways. It is currently April 2026, and I just finished hosting 18 three-year-olds for my daughter Maya’s birthday. If you had told me…
My kitchen floor currently smells like a mix of cumin and spilled grape juice, and frankly, that’s a massive improvement over last year’s taco-themed disaster. Being a single dad in Atlanta means I’ve spent more time in the party supply aisle of Publix than I ever thought possible, usually while my son, Leo, tries to…
My daughter Lily turned four on April 12, 2025, and I learned a very expensive lesson about thermodynamics and polyester wings in my small Atlanta backyard. I spent exactly $42.00 on her entire “Enchanted Forest” setup for 15 screaming kids, but that budget almost went up in smoke—literally—because I thought real beeswax tapers were a…
My golden retriever, Barnaby, still has a tiny metallic green Stegosaurus stuck to his left ear from the party we hosted three weeks ago. It was a humid Saturday in Austin, specifically October 12, 2025, and I had decided that my nephew Leo’s 7th birthday needed to be the “Greatest Show on Earth” but with…
Leo’s seventh birthday party last August was nearly a literal wash-out because of a sudden Portland “sprinkle” that turned into a full-blown downpour within ten minutes of the first guest arriving. My backyard looked like a crime scene where the primary victims were three dozen rolls of black and white crepe paper that I’d painstakingly…
The humidity in Houston on October 22, 2024, was thick enough to melt a glue stick, but my fourth-period class didn’t care because the “Owl-oween” bash was finally here. I spent my planning period frantically blowing up owl balloons while praying the principal wouldn’t walk in to find me surrounded by a flock of inflatable…
My living room in Inman Park looked like the trash compactor scene from A New Hope after my son Leo’s eighth birthday on March 12, 2024. I stood there, knee-deep in shredded wrapping paper and half-eaten pizza crusts, holding a soggy, collapsed paper cup that featured a very sad-looking Yoda. That was the moment I…
Austin humidity is no joke when you are trying to keep a buttercream cake from sliding into a sugary puddle of despair on a 98-degree afternoon. Last August, I found myself standing in my kitchen, sweating through my favorite linen romper, frantically trying to balance a flimsy cardboard cat on top of a three-tier monstrosity…
Houston humidity in April feels like wearing a damp wool sweater while standing inside a dishwasher, but that didn’t stop me from promising my fifth graders a “Secret Garden” gala last Tuesday. I teach 18 energetic eleven-year-olds who have spent the last six months staring at whiteboards and standardized tests. They deserved some dirt, some…
