Saunders's 30th Birthday Party

Saunders had a whole week of birthday celebrations in honor of the Big 3-0!  We had dinner at Henry's with his parents, a party at my parents' house, and he went to the UGA vs Tennessee game (and had the bonus gift of a Dawgs victory!) on Saturday.  On Sunday, we capped the week of celebrating off with a big party for family and friends at our house!

I was a little nervous about pulling off a big party only seven weeks after SJ was born, so we tried to keep it fun and easy.  Since almost all of our friends have small kids, we decided to go with a family-friendly party this time, and it was such a great idea!  All the kids had a blast and added a lot of fun to the whole event.  We set everything up for a basement/backyard party, and it was so nice - everyone hung out in the backyard and just went in and out of the basement.  We had the Braves on in the den, the playroom - complete with one of my sweet former students as a mother's helper - all set up for kids who wanted to play inside, and the buffet was in the basement, too.  In the backyard, we had the swing set, trampoline, and we rented a big inflatable slide for kids and brave adults!  In the driveway, we had two sets of cornhole boards for playing and tables set up for eating.  For dinner, my whole idea was to have only finger foods - no forks or spoons necessary!  My mom helped me get the food together, and we had three stages of party food for everyone to enjoy.  For appetizers and snacking while people were mingling, there was buffalo chicken dip and chips, Chex-mix, pretzels, brownies, and Goldfish for the kids.  For dinner, we had hotdogs, chips, and Katie Anne and I made fruit skewers and cheese skewers.  For dessert, we had four different kinds of cupcakes from Agan's Bakery.  I think the finger food only idea was tons of fun!  There were guests from all different parts of Saunders's life - family, old friends, work friends, new friends - and everyone got along really well together.  It was one of our most fun parties that we've thrown, and Saunders had a fabulous time celebrating his 30th birthday!!!