text all of your friends and call it a birthday party

I know you love posts about elaborate parties that Kristen plans way in advance and executes with panache. This is not one of those.

My husband's birthday was last week. It wasn't a particularly significant one but birthdays are a big deal in his family. All of them. So even though he wasn't actually turning 8, we celebrated like he was.

At the very last minute, he texted about 15 friends and invited them over to watch football on Sunday "for his birthday party". I even planned to be there (this is a rarity. i don't do football season. it was in the spirit of celebrating).

This turned out to be a pretty good idea for me because without any time to accomplish the countless house goals we still have on our list(s), I really couldn't stress. that much. I just ... did this:

picked up the most decent looking flowers from the florist

called in all of his football food favorites

busted out some crayola water color paints (these come in handly on a regular basis at my house. anyone readers who have ever gotten a birthday card from me are probably a little disappointed right about now) and a piece of poster board (note: if you can possibly have this idea at least one day in advance, it works a lot better.)

cleaned up a (very) little

made a few drinks

made a few (boxed) cupcakes

and called it a party.

(a few more notes, don't worry if the only table cloth you can find is pink. your husband probably won't even notice. actually, he may even be color blind. and if you don't have any art on your walls yet, don't worry about that either. hopefully the mother of a childhood friend of your husband's has blown up a newspaper article from 25 years when your husband actually did have his eighth birthday party and given to you for Christmas - that works just fine in a pinch. and in case you haven't noticed, this was a pinch.)

Happy Birthday, sweet boy! Thanks for thinking even parties like this are super fun!