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The Cheese on his first birthday.

The Cheese's sixth birthday party is in five days.  This year he wanted a Scooby Doo party at the park near our house.  Now the weather man is saying that there is an eighty percent chance of rain on Saturday. 

I am officially in party panic mode.

This is Southern California where it is always sunny and hardly ever rains.  I find it ironic really.  The first year we lived here this part of the state was in a drought and I often prayed for an overcast day with a few sprinkles or even better, a heavy down pour.  When the storms finally came late one night, I opened our bedroom windows to watch the rain and smell its sweetness, excited that it was finally raining.  All winter it has been raining off and on and I've enjoyed the break in the regular perfect weather routine.  But now it's about to ruin my son's birthday and suddenly I'm not all that thrilled about the cloudy skies.

In the past six years, I've done a pretty good job avoiding spending a mere fortune on my children's parties.  I like traditional, simple parties that are about eating a little cake and celebrating the birthday boy.  I like making their cakes and putting together creative party favors.  Here's what I've done for the Cheese's first five birthdays:  

1st birthday: A Big Top Birthday!  This was a circus themed party with a cake that looked like a lion's face.  I handmade the invitations that included a ticket to admit ONE.  I decorated with red and white striped popcorn boxes filled with balloons and the cousins and close family friends ate popcorn while the birthday boy opened his presents.

2nd birthday: Drive on over to the party!  This party was all about cars (not the Disney movie, it wasn't out yet.)  The cakes were race cars and the table was decorated with black and white plates to look like checkered flags with chocolate cars and Hot Wheels scattered around the table.  I decorated the front door with homemade street signs that said thing like "Party Parking Here" and "Yield for Party Guests."

3rd birthday: Favorite Character party.  This year the Cheese was having trouble deciding what kind of party to have (it was also the first year that I had let him pick.)  So, I decided instead of choosing just one we would have a party with all of his favorite characters.  We had Clifford plates, Blue's Clues napkins, Wiggles cups, and a Thomas the Tank engine table cloth.  I made cupcakes baked in ice cream cones and the kids ate pizza and colored pictures of their favorite characters. 

4th birthday: Color me Crazy Crayon party.  I baked a cake that looked like a box of crayons (one of the more difficult ones that I've ever tried to do) and bought a large roll of white butcher paper which I laid out on the floor and placed buckets of crayons all around for the kids to color.  For party favors, I bought little mugs that the craft store that the guests could permanently color on and take home. 

5th birthday party: Star Wars bowling party.  Not one of my more inspired themes, but the birthday boy was very specific in what he wanted--a Darth Vader cake and bowling.  Because the bowling alley didn't allow outside food, I had to go with one of their decorated cakes which the kids seemed to enjoy, not caring a bit that it wasn't home made.  Kids ate pizza, bowled and had a ball.

And here we are.  I had been planning on taking it fairly easy this year.  I've bought all of the Scooby Doo paper products and the Scooby cake tin is ready to go.  Other than playing on the playground equipment at the park, the only other thing that the birthday boy had requested was a game of dodge ball.  I figured the kids would play, the dads would run the dodge ball game, and I would actually be able to sit back and enjoy it all.  But the high probability of rain has changed all that and as in years past, it is time for me to kick it into gear.

So, now we are going to play "Find the Scooby Snacks."  I am going to hide small milk bones all over the house and give the kids paper bags to put them in.  I figure the kids will tear the house apart, but we're moving in a few months anyway.  We'll also play "Wrap the Mummy" where two teams have to wrap a team member (or a daddy!) in toilet paper.  Yes, a fine waste of paper products but I think the kids will laugh hysterically doing it, and there's nothing better than a child's unyielding laughter.  We'll eat cake and open some presents.  Hopefully fun will be had by all. 

Scooby-Dooby-Doo!