Rock Climbing Party

This Spring Isaiah will be 8 years old. It is hard to believe that that scrawny little preemie, who weighed 1 pound 14 ounces at birth, is almost 8 years old! I recall visiting him in the Neo-natal intensive care unit every day for the 57 days that he was there. In the hallways were photographs of children who were once patients in the NICU. The children in the photographs looked as if they were about 2-4 years old. I recall saying to my sister that I could not even imagine Isaiah looking like that. At the time Isaiah had a bunch of wires attached to monitors, a feeding tube and was just so tiny.

Fast forward to 2008. He is now this tall, skinny kid who is constantly running around. He is in 2nd grade, is a Cub Scout, loves to use the computer, wants to be an architect and is currently obsessed with Sponge Bob. He also loves to rock climb!

Sometime in 2007, seemingly out of the blue, Isaiah told me that he wanted a rock climbing birthday party. I thought the idea was kinda cool and agreed to it. His birthday was still over 6 months away, so I figured there was a strong possibility that he would change his mind. Every once in a while when the topic of his birthday would come up, we would mention it to me again, “Mommy, I want a rock climbing party.” Two months before his birthday he was still insisting on a rock climbing party. I gave him other options. He was steadfast in his desire to rock climb. I decided that we would have to at least try it once or twice prior to his party to make sure he really likes it and that he can do it. We signed up at Vertical Endeavors to climb during one of their open climbing sessions. Isaiah was beside himself with excitement. Harold, Isaiah and I all put on the climbing gear. One of the instructors gave us an orientation on climbing and instruction. It really is not that difficult to learn how to do it. the difficulty is to have the strength to push your body up with your legs and/or pull your body up. Now for Isaiah, who barely weights 40 pounds, this is not so much an issue. We attached the safety equipment to him and practically scrambled up the wall!! I was shocked that he showed no fear even when he was all the way up—about 20 feet above the ground. Because Isaiah is so light, we had to attach an extra rope to his climbing belt that we would pull to bring him down. Typically, the climber’s weight would help him quickly descend.

When Isaiah was back on the ground after climbing once, we had a huge smile. He was just beaming. He loved it. We spent about an hour climbing. Isaiah climbed about 5 different areas of the wall. I also attempted to climb—with little success. I just was not strong enough to pull my body up. But I have not given up!

I took Isaiah climbing again the next 2 weekends. Since he loves it so much, we plan to purchase a family membership so that we can climb regularly.

So Isaiah is having a rock climbing party. Now that I have secured the location, my next task: design the invitation! For this invitation I am not sure whether to do my traditional style of invitation with one of my characters wall climbing. The other option I am considering is designing the invitation with a photo of Isaiah climbing. I think that a photo of him would be so cute and compelling that I may just go that route. I would still design a more traditional invitation and I would use my traditional design to make the accessories such as the favor labes, thank you note cards, etc.

Stay tuned!! I will post the invitations in a future post-- as soon as I design it!

Cooking Birthday Party

Last year, for his 7th birthday, Isaiah declared that he wanted his party at A Kid’s Kitchen. We discovered A Kid’s Kitchen in 2006, shortly after it first opened. This wonderful little kid’s culinary institute offers numerous cooking classes for children. Isaiah has attended classes on making ice cream sandwiches featuring fresh baked brownies, pizzas, donuts and several other scrumptious, kid-friendly fare. Harold and I even took a “grown-up” class which doubled as dinner for 2. We made barbecue spare-ribs and salad and brought in a nice bottle of wine!

A couple of months before Isaiah’s party we took him to a class at A Kid’s Kitchen. It has been several months since he had taken a class, but he quickly remembered how much he enjoyed it. A week or so later I gave him several options for his birthday party: another bowling party, ice-skating, baseball game or a party at A Kid’s Kitchen. Without hesitation he selected A Kid’s Kitchen.

After contacting Chef Michelle, owner of A Kid’s Kitchen, the next thing I had to do was design a party invitation and accessories. A few days late my “Chef Guy” invitation design was born!

This party involved very little work. A Kid’s Kitchen’s license provided that no outside food could be brought in. All we provided was the goody bags.

The activity was making pizza. The kids did everything from rolling the dough, to adding the sauce and picking toppings. Some of the adults got involved as well and made personal pizzas. The great thing about his type of party is that kids love to put their hands into gooey, messy things. Add to pizza to that concept and you have a winning recipe for a birthday party. There is also an educational component. Chef Michelle instructs the children on kitchen hygiene. There are hand-washing stations that the kids had to use multiple times throughout the party. Chef Michelle also gave a mini-lesson on measuring ingredients.

After the kids (and a few adults) designed their own pizzas, Chef Michelle popped them in the oven. While they were baking, the kids decorated cupcakes to eat in place of a traditional birthday cake. (We had a traditional birthday cake at home.). We opened gifts and everyone went home with very happy tummies!

I designed the invitation to feature a boy. Soon after I posted it one of my clients requested a girl version. The Chef Girl invitation was born!

Bowling Party

Many of my design ideas are based on my son, Isaiah’s, parties. Two years ago for his 6th birthday party, he wanted a bowling party. A few months prior to his birthday, Isaiah, Harold and I went bowling. Prior to that I had bowled about 2-3 times in the past 20 years. However, when I was in elementary school I was on the bowling team and was pretty gold. I even won a trophy! My assumption was that if I was able to bowl pretty well when I was 8, against other kids who were 8, then 30 years later I should still be able to bowl pretty well—especially against my 6 year old.

The first indication that my logic was faulty was when I tried to pick up a bowling ball. It was sooo heavy. After bowling a couple of frames my wrist ached. I was able to barely win the first game. However, both Isaiah and Harold handily beat me the second the game.

On the way home Isaiah could not stop talking about how much fun he had. They just happened to be a bowling match on TV. Isaiah sat and watched it…. mesmerized. It naturally followed that we would have a bowling birthday party. Soon after he made it clear to me that he wanted to have a bowling birthday party.

We had the party at Brunswick Lanes in Naperville, IL. Of course I had to come up with a cute birthday party invitation. Although my son’s party was the inspiration for the invitation, I wanted the invitation to be unisex. The invitation features both a boy and girl bowling. I also designed matching fill-in thank you note cards and favor labels. We used white paper bags that we purchased at an office supply store. We filled them with candy, small toys and a book. We folded the top of the bag over and sealed them with the bowling-themed label that read, “Thank you for coming to Isaiah’s 6th Birthday Party.” One additional special touch was that I designed a coordinating, bowling-themed t-shirt for Isaiah to wear to the party. He looked so CUTE!!!

Besides my designing the invitations, we had to do very little to prepare for the party. Brunswick provided the food and beverages. We brought in ice cream and toppings from Harold’s favorite ice cream store and a bought a cute little bowling themed cake from my favorite bakery. In addition to about 10 of Isaiah’s friends, the usual family and family friends came to the party: my mother, my sister and Karen (Isaiah’s speech therapist).