Sitting in the salon chair yesterday, my stylist mentioned the stress of planning her daughter's birthday party after the last two years coincided with trips to Walt Disney World. "Now my daughter expects every birthday party to be at Disney World," she sighed as she rolled her eyes with a look of exasperation.

"You've set the bar pretty high. It's hard to compete with the magic of Disney. How 'bout a bouncy house?"

"That's what we're planning for this year," she said.

"We thought we had the same trouble with Senia Mae's party last year," I said as she snip-snipped and my curly locks floated down the the floor. "I'd tell her: Senia Mae we need to decide where your party is going to be so we can send out the invites in advance. You know what she said?"

"Mama, this is all just TOO MUCH!"

"What do you mean too much? You sound like a Grandma!"

"You know deciding who can come and who not to invite... it's just stressful. Can it just be the three of us?"

I didn't tell her I'd love to save the hundreds of dollars to costs to throw a big party! I said, "Sure. We can have lunch at American Girl and how about getting a hotel room with an indoor pool?" She was thrilled about staying in a hotel. In her mind very few things compared to the importance of a hotel stay.

Later on when someone asked what she was doing for her birthday Senia Mae said,"we're going on vacation."

"Oh, to where?" they asked.

"Senia Mae spouted off proudly, "Alpharetta."

"Oh you're going on a nice vacation to Alpharetta!" What makes this so funny is that Alpharetta is about a twenty minute trip, two towns over from where we live. So we looked like real big spenders taking our kid on a birthday vacation in Alpharetta! The important thing was that she loved her special birthday with just her moms and that in itself made the voyage to Alpharetta worth the trip!