We did it!  Benjamin’s birthday party went very well on Saturday.  We had 11 kids and 9 adults — 2 kids who hadn’t RSVPed (including 1 we didn’t actually invite, the older brother of an invitee . . . but if we’d known he had an older brother, we would have invited him), 1 child who said he was coming but didn’t, 1 set of twins whose parents dropped them off and left (which surprised me, but as one of my friends observed, it was 2 fewer people to entertain), 2 kids and 1 parent who spoke absolutely no English, 2 kids who barely spoke English, and 4 different nationalities represented (and no other Americans, aside from us).

It was great.  The kids all seemed to have a good time, including, most importantly, the birthday boy.  The whole party was Angry Birds themed, just like B wanted — cake, decorations, games, and all.  I think it ended up being quite festive.  I was able to visit with each of the adults a little (and thus even practice my German a bit!), and play a lot with the kids.  We played games, had cake (which was beautiful, tasty and plenty big enough) and ice cream, and even opened presents.  (I had planned to skip opening presents, but was persuaded to do it.  I’m glad we did — it was fun for everyone.)

Mostly, I’m glad that Benjamin had a good time.  It was his first time hosting his school friends at his house, and since we hadn’t hosted a play date at home in a while at all, having a house full of friends was a real treat.  Liam had a great time playing with everyone, too.  He also gets credit for the sweetest mistake of the party — he misheard Leonie’s name as Lambie, has been persistently asking when “Lambie” is coming back to visit again.  We all had a great time, and I think we managed to be reasonably decent hosts.  At the very least, we didn’t create any kind of international incident.  It was a success.