Going Dutch: Kaylie's Birthday Party

Though Kaylie's actual birthday was Thursday, we decided to have her party on Friday evening when we thought her friends were more likely to be able to come. What we didn't realize was just how many of those friends would be able to make it to the party. The invitations had an RSVP on them, but apparently that is not an internationally recognized request, so we had only heard back from two or three of the kids in her class stating that they would be coming. But on the night of the party, we were slightly overwhelmed when there were approximately 18 kids, many of whom didn't speak English, running around our little house! Kaylie was having lots of fun, serving as the host and interpreter to her friends - this was the first time for us, too, that we had really seen her talking with her school friends, and I know it made me extremely proud of her. We are so glad that she gets the chance to go to school with kids from so many countries, cultures and languages - it certainly was fun to see them all together.

The theme of the party was "art" so the room was decorated with bright colors, and Heather had baked a cake (from scratch) and decorated it to look like an artist's pallet.

When all of the guests had arrived, and their parents had escaped, we herded the kids around our dining table where there were toppings of cheese, salami (what the Dutch use in place of pepperoni), peppers, olives,ham, and bacon and gave them each a ball of dough. They had tons of fun creating their own edible masterpieces, and then, while the pizzas were rotated through the oven by Barbel, one of our very gracious Dutch friends who had stayed to help us, Heather led the group of kids in a game where they had to listen to a story and, with their eyes closed, draw out the different parts. She, of course, had to do this in Dutch, but fortunately she had the help of another friend, Samara. The kids had lots of fun drawing, though many of them cheated.

The pizzas were still not all cooked, so we moved on to a very Dutch game which is similar to musical chairs, but with presents instead of chairs. No, you don't sit on the presents - you pass a present, which has been wrapped multiple times, around the circle while music plays. When the music stops, you have to unwrap a layer. If you reveal the present, it's yours to keep; if you find another layer of paper, the music begins again and you continue to pass.

We finished this game just as the last pizzas were coming out of the oven, and then the kids got to sit in a crowd on the living room floor to eat while we got the presents and cake ready. We had planned to let the kids all paint on canvas boards, but because there were so many of them, this was going to be impossible and ridiculously messy, so we went straight to the presents.

After we sang "Happy Birthday" in Dutch, and while we were cutting the cake, some of the parents started showing up to pick up their kids, so we got a chance to talk to them a little. It was a little awkward with all of us trying to speak Dutch as a second language, and it made me sympathize with what Kaylie and her classmates must have had to go through at the beginning of the school year, and it made me even more impressed with how well they were communicating at the party.

The party was a huge success. Kaylie and all of her friends had a great time, and other than the chaos, we enjoyed hosting our first Dutch kid's birthday party, though we're going to invite far fewer people to Keiric's in a couple of weeks.