Lessons learned from a 4-year old birthday party

This past weekend we celebrated Aidan's 4th birthday! It's hard to believe my little guy is 4 already!

Anyway - we had some family over to celebrate and I thought I would compile a list of things I have learned over the years from hosting my own parties.

1. Always buy a smaller size cake than the amount the bakery tells you it feeds. You will always have cake left over. I like cake. I like my cake to be damn good. Delicious, moist cake with yummy frosting that doesn't taste like it is loaded with sugar. I will pay a little extra money to have a well-made cake. I decided to order the cake from Zachary's in East Greenbush. I love their cake. And they said they could do a Spiderman cake. So I paid the $34 for it. I ended up getting the smallest cake they sold. Supposedly it only feeds 8-10. Nonsense. They lied. They want you to buy the bigger cake. Thank goodness I listened to my gut. Between the non-cake eaters, the ice cream and the Christmas cookies - we had more than enough. After the party was over, I had about a quarter of the cake left.

2. Buy diet soda. These were the drinks that I had on hand: Wine, iced tea, pepsi, sprite, water, and some Mike's drinks. Of course, one person wanted diet soda. And I didn't have diet soda. Seriously? I thought I was prepared. And let me tell you that no one opened up the regular pepsi or the iced tea.

3. Turn your heat off. When it's winter, most people have the heat on. However, once your house fills up with people it gets hot. So if you don't want to roast overheat your guests, then just flip the switch to "off."

4. Let your kid pick the order of the party. If your kid wants to open the presents before it's cake time, let him. It allows time to digest so people eat more cake. And then there won't be left over cake.

5. Use paper products. About 3 hours before the party, Brian suggested that we use our real dinner plates instead of paper plates. I pondered that thought for about 2 seconds before I said, "Hell no!"  I am not sure what he was thinking.

6. Write thank you notes the next day. Then they will be done and you don't have to worry about them.