As much as I’d like to say the birthday party went off without a hitch, well, there were a few snafus. Let’s just say that having your eight-year-old in charge of the main activity for 15 little girls was about as frustrating as putting together an IKEA Bjorkin desk with sixteen drawers and extra parts.

What was I thinking?

Here’s what I was thinking. My eight-year-old is organized. More so than me. She tells me when homework is due. She reminds me when I’m supposed to come in for mystery reader. So when she volunteered to put together the entire birthday party, I was ecstatic! She had a clipboard with the names of each little girl for check-in. She mocked up a sample craft board showing the various designs and choices of tape colors. And she even had bathroom breaks written into the schedule (I didn’t ask questions).

The only problem was that she was about ten steps ahead of everyone else in her execution of said duct tape project, myself included. And her directions were extremely confusing. While I was still pulling duct tape off of my jeans and trying to get it from sticking to the tablecloth and various party guests, she was already putting on the finishing pieces and cheering for ‘her table’ that they were already done, while my remedial table still had no idea what was going on.

Competitive little one, isn’t she?

Cut to two hours later and we were still working on the projects but now the parents were showing up, which didn’t exactly comply with the schedule. We hadn’t even eaten the pizza yet! The cake was sitting there! What about limbo? Dance party? Scavenger hunt?

All that extra time I thought I’d have didn’t exactly happen.

But I will say that despite my her competitive nature, the girls had a great time. And, despite the ridiculous cost of duct tape which put my party right on target with the average over the top keeping up with the Joneses venture, it was still more fun than a jumpy place.

So if in the future you ever need a PhD level duct tape project, give us a call. I have your girl.

On a side but still related note, duct tape is also highly useful for cleaning up crumbs to zucchini bread, a recipe for which I got from another food blogger, The Witch’s Kitchen. I like it because it’s simple. And because it’s baked and involves measurements, I cannot and will not take any credit for it!

There’s nothing like waking up on a Sunday morning to the smell of freshly baked zucchini bread! Enjoy.

Zucchini Bread (courtesy of the Witch’s Kitchen)

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• sprinkle cinnamon
• chocolate chips (optional)

 

Tags: easy zucchini bread, Zucchini bread