Planning a Crawfish Boil

For the eleven years that I've known Mark, he's been talking about throwing a big party and having a crawfish boil. I always kind of rolled my eyes and ignored him but I have officially become tired of his talking about it! Therefore, I've decided to throw the man a big old boil myself for his 35th birthday in April! On a side-note, he tends to talk about things so much that I eventually just give in and tell him to do whatever he keeps talking about or buy whatever he's obsessed with. This happened with his Rzr S...he talked about that little ATV thing since 2007. I finally told him last year to either buy it or stop talking about it. He drove to Dublin the following day and bought one, the goofball! That man has a tendency to wear me down but I'm sure that I do the same thing to him as well!

Back to the boil...

So, Mark's birthday is April 11. Trent's is April 12. Thus, I am now throwing joint birthday party which will consist of a big crawfish broil a mere three weeks before the second little monster is due. I've decided to make it as easy as possible by ordering the cake this year (last year, I thought it would be fun to not only make all of the food for the party but also to make a small cake for Trent and 50 cupcakes...turns out, baking and cooking all day isn't that much fun).

Now, I have no flipping idea as to how to throw a broil. I know that I have to rent several long tables, order live crawfish that have to be overnighted from Louisiana, order bibs and plastic table clothes in addition to a bouncy house for the kids. Mark wants this boil to be authentic. Based on my research, an authentic boil consists of washing the crawfish a certain way, then throwing a crap load of crawfish into a huge pot, along with potatoes, corn and apparently, lots and lots of lemon halves. When all of that is cooked, you throw all of the crap from the pot onto the tables and dig in! I think that I am going to try to find some plain bibs that the kids can decorate or something.

Oh yeah, and Mark wants a keg so I have to add that to the list along with make gift bags for the kiddos who attend and find a cake for Mark and Trent. To top it off, based on my research and the amount of people who will be invited, I have to order 120 pounds of crawfish! Now that is a whole lot of mudbugs (see, I'm learning the lingo and everything)! Mark also wants an invitation that allows for a picture of him and Trent on the front and I cannot believe how hard that has been because he doesn't like any that I've picked out. I'm glad that I've started the planning process so early because I've discovered that Mark is being one picky birthday boy! The only thing that Mark has contributed so far is the making of the guest list and a whole lot of demands. Lol.

This all sounds like a ton of work to me but my boys are worth it. I'm hoping that my mom will come down early to help me and if I can talk the soon-to-be sister in law to come early too (her birthday is the same days as Mark's) if my brother's work schedule allows, I'll be set. If my other brother (his birthday is the same day as Trent's) and his wife come too, I'll be golden, although she is prego so she'll be starting to waddle around like me. It's hard to get them to come to Nevada since they live in California but we'll see!

If anyone has any tips on how to throw a proper broil, feel free to let this clueless girl in because I'm feeling a little lost!