Diary of a Wimpy Kid Party Take Two

It's that time of year again. The leaves are colorful, the air is crisp, the kids are back in school, and this means that fall is upon us. As soon as the calendar switched over to October, I began to feel an enormous sense of pressure take over on how we should celebrate Mahlon's tenth birthday. We originally planned on hosting it somewhere outside of the home, especially since we got so many comments about how we shouldn't of hosted the party at our house, but we recently purchased a new home and then my husband suddenly lost his job without any warning. Financially things haven't been so great for our family (will update more on all of the other stuff that's been going on in our lives these last several months in a separate post). Since paying hundreds of dollars to invite his entire fourth grade class and fall soccer team to a fancy party place was definitely out of the question, we decided to just invite a handful of his closest friends over to our house for pizza and cake again. I wont post the actual party date as I don't want any media showing up on my doorstep.

Basically we're having a Diary of a Wimpy Kid party, take two. 

In case you're wondering why we would dare to repeat last year's fiasco, Mahlon is dead set on having the EXACT same birthday party he attempted to have for his ninth. I'm talking he wants every single detail to mimic last year's party....same cake topper, games, decorations, goodie bags, pizza, literally EVERYTHING exactly the same (except for the whole nobody showing up thing of course). Bless his little heart. When I asked why he didn't want to just pick a fresh new theme (I was trying to convince him to do a Halloween theme since he loves scary movies and costumes), he looked at me with his big brown eyes and said, "But mom, I didn't get to play any of those fun games with my friends last year because none of them came. I just want to share those games with them". I know, I know, this kid sure knows how to punch you right in the emotional stomach, huh?  Plus, he still loves Diary of a Wimpy Kid more than anything (who doesn't?)

I got a bit emotional digging up these photos 

 

One of the games we had planned on playing last year (hey Gershy, remember these are names of DOAWK characters, not party guests who didn't show up..hahaha!!):

 Still one of Jeff Kinney's biggest fans!!!

Here's Mahlon with his little brother at the latest DOAWK movie last May: 

So, there I found myself digging through boxes of miscellaneous party supplies in my drafty, spider infested attic, trying to find the leftover Diary of a Wimpy Kid invitations from last year, and the memories and emotions of everything that took place last October, came flooding back. Before I knew it, I was sitting on the cold, hard attic floor, blubbering like a baby.  My biggest fear of course being "What if this happens to him again?" but I had already told myself that if we didn't get a single RSVP this year, then we would not be going ahead with the party and would try and reschedule for another date. However, this time around, we've literally gotten an RSVP from every single guest and everyone has said "yes", minus one who has a family conflict, so I'm fairly confident that at least one child will show up. Honestly that's all Mahlon wanted last year. If even just one child had showed up, none of this would've ever happened, and I wouldn't even be writing this follow up post.

Custom Diary of a Wimpy Kid invites we had made last year: 

This year's DOAWK cake topper:

he chose the blue book cover instead of red this time: 

 Last year's cake...

I ordered a bigger cake this year as I could barely squeeze this baby onto a quarter sheet cake and I screwed up the pretty frosting border in the process:

If for some evil twist of fate, history repeats itself and no one comes, we'll be much better prepared on how to handle it. Plus Mahlon knows he is loved, and he is much more confident in himself. He has lots of friends from school, soccer and our neighborhood who care about him. Not to mention the tens of thousands of people from all over the world who reached out to show him some love. We are forever grateful to each and every one of you!!! Mahlon would like to record a special video message for all of you on his actual birthday, so I'll be posting a live video, hopefully on his actual birthday which is Oct. 23rd. Of course his birthday just happens to fall on a Monday this year, and it's a school day, so once we figure out a time, I'll post an update on my page.

Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts for the incredible outpouring of love and support that you showed our family. I wish we could invite ALL of you to Mahlon's birthday party!!

The Latest

I know I know...I disappeared again without a trace. I'm seriously struggling big time to maintain this blog and deal with the most hyper active baby I've ever had the pleasure of raising.  This one doesn't sleep y'all and he never ever EVER stops moving. Seriously, you guys have no idea how crazy my little man is, but I'll post more on Seanie Mac later because I could seriously fill up an entire post on the nutty, asinine things this boy is already doing and he's not even a year old. What can I say? He's gifted.....

Toy bins are made for climbing apparently

 

These two equal TROUBLE!!!

In other news I've decided that I'm going to start posting on my blog every single day (at least on the weekdays) to get myself actively writing again. I hope I don't run out of exciting things to post about, but then again I'm getting old so worst case scenario I can always talk about my changing moles, joint pain, and newest batch of grey hairs, right?

I'm so very sorry for not posting an update on the whole Mahlon/RSVP thing. I made a thank you slideshow with several pics and the video ended up being eight minutes long.  Rather than bore people to tears with the longest, slowest slideshow ever created (I seriously suck at figuring out how to use iMovie), I think I'll just post the pics on my blog instead. I will work on writing my post this weekend and have it up and running on Monday, and I'll try really hard to include a short video of Mahlon, either on the blog, Facebook, or both.  Mahlon is still begging us for his own YouTube channel and I know he's a charming, funny little boy and many people are interested in his life, but my husband and I haven't totally made up our minds yet. Part of me wants to shield him from the online world as some people can be unbelievably cruel while hiding behind a computer screen.  If we do allow him to start doing a weekly YouTube show, you guys will be the first to know.

Speaking of Mahlon, he is doing pretty great in case you're worried/wondering. He received an award at school (Growth Mindset) and he is so proud of himself, as are we. Academically he's doing amazing as well. As a former home school mom, I was so worried and anxious that he would be behind since he was thrown into public school as a third grader, but he's actually ahead of grade level.  He recently tested and got his upper green belt in Taekwondo not too long ago and life is pretty much back to normal for him, for all of us really. 

Upper green belt testing

Mahlon and I still get recognized from time to time since we live in a small town and that's kind of weird (and scary since it forces me to be on my best behavior at all times), but I'm actually relieved that the hype has died down. Going viral was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Occasionally I get asked how I went viral and I'm dead serious when I say, "Sorry, I have no idea" because that's the truth. I really, truly don't know how I did it. I simply wrote from the heart and my thoughts and feelings just poured out into my post, and it got shared......A LOT.

Despite what some jerky asshat in NY wrote about me, I never intended to go viral and to be quite honest, I didn't embrace the attention as many others probably would have.  What most don't know is that I turned down several offers to be on TV, which could've potentially turned into something else for our family (a reality show for example).  Yes, I write a blog and I share a lot of personal stories about our lives, but I'm also a very private person and I suffer from social anxiety, and it's very difficult to overcome and deal with at times. When my blog post first went viral I had many moments of sheer panic and terror over having to read comments about me from judgmental strangers, having to answer my phone for interviews, respond to emails, etc.  I'm not good at that kind of thing and it's also why I've been lying low these last few months and just trying to get back to normal.  No, it's not how most bloggers would've handled it, and most probably would've loved the sudden attention and ran with it, but for me, I had so much anxiety, that I couldn't even pick up my Macbook for several weeks.

There are a couple of things I've been contemplating about lately and one of them is writing a book about my life (but I thought about doing that long before my RSVP post went viral so stuff it Gershie).  Our entire family has been through some crazy stuff over the years, some of it is juicier than a cheesy Lifetime movie. I suppose I could write about it here, but I save this blog for more important, tantalizing topics like my dysfunctional bladder, my arachnophobic husband, and my dog who thinks our hardwood floors make a fabulous toilet.  I don't know if anyone would read my book, but I would still love to write one even if my family and a few friends end up being the only willing readers.  Another thing I've been working on is directly related to the RSVP post, but it's more of a pay it forward/mission type of project. Will update when or if we can get something going. I do have someone willing to help me so that's a good start. Now if I could force my ADD brain to focus on something for more than a week, I'd be golden.

Anyways, I could ramble on and on but we have company coming over tonight and my toilets look especially gas station worthy at the moment, so I need to go clean them before our company goes running out of our house screaming.

Have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday!!