10, the party

To celebrate Em's 10th birthday with her friends, we found an invitation (after some searching on vistaprint) that served as the inspiration...

So, I'll just use the invite as a tour guide to walk through the party that I survived and even, at times, enjoyed.

The top ten reasons to come to Emmie's party

10. What else are you doing Friday, Nov. 19th? Only one girl actually had something else to do Friday night, so that meant the total number of girls was 10. I now know, that's kind of a lot of tweens. Be warned, should you try this at your home, they are cute and they are sweet but they will overtake every inch of your house in all their pre-pubescent glory.

9. Everybody loves a sleepover. Really? I'm not sure I practiced truth in advertising because I'm not sure I even love a sleepover. And Jack and Tate weren't too fond of this particular one. Thankfully they were able to slip out and spend the night at Grandma's where there's cable, an indoor pool, and not 10 girls. Before leaving, Jack had to pick up the poop in the back yard...

then made a shirtless appearance (and was quickly whisked away)...

And Tate played waiter by taking drink orders...

8. Free dinner. Just tacos. I was SO glad to have lovely assistants helping me out in the kitchen...
Allison and Meghan are two students that are both long-time family friends. They are the reason I survived the night. They did dishes, painted nails, made colored frosting, held Lulu, handled girl drama, and completely saved my sanity.

7. Late-night giggles. They had late night giggles, just not as late as some wanted. Allison and I laid on the floor with them and made them whisper and keep their heads on the pillow. This caused Em to tell me I "ruined the party" the next morning, but let's just say I was on the Mom's side. Even though I ruined the party, I thought I told a pretty kickin' bedtime story. Only I was a little punchy after having bronchitis all week, so one part of the story was about how there were girls who wouldn't go to bed at a slumber party, so the mom broke all of their arms. Twisted, but effective. Everyone was asleep by 12:30am which I considered a major victory. (Btw, they knew I was kidding about the broken arms. I hope their parents did too.)
6. Dancing 'til we drop. Or until Emmie has a meltdown saying she is totally overwhelmed and we have to turn off the music and move to a more low key activity like watching "Ramona and Beezus".

5. See Mr. Bill's mad dancing skillz. I'm not gonna lie, this was the highlight of the whole stinkin' party. The man was unconscious...
The demented look he gets in his eyes while trying to get into the groove cracks me up. The girls loved it and I love that he is mine.

4. A fun craft. Yeah, I ran out of time for the craft. We were going to make pom poms, which would have been pretty cool. So now I am left with a truck load of tissue paper. Oh well, crafts are overrated. But painted nails are not, which is what we did instead...
Lulu got her nails painted for the first time...
She was mesmerized...

3. Being with friends...

the silly string war was a big hit...

the presents were a big hit too...

especially the overhead projector she has wanted for almost a year...

and the Justin Bieber calendar...

2. Cake and ice cream. Need I say more? The pint-sized cake was super duper cute...
So cute that I didn't even cut into it. I just realized that it is two days later and we still haven't eaten it. Better get on that. It really more a decoration than anything since we had girls decorate their own cupcakes...

Hey, that could be considered a fun craft right? Oh and guess what? I forgot to serve the ice cream. False advertising, once again. But I dished up a darling dose of number one...

1. One word: Lulu!
The party didn't have much of a theme beyond "10", but that was okay because the girls came up with their own theme: DRAMA. We had squeals, we had tears, we had pouting, we had attention-getting antics and we even had a wee bit of vomit in the morning. Drama or no drama, we were making memories. And celebrating God's goodness to us in the form of this almost 10 year old...
Just like the back of the invitation said...

P.S. It comforts me to have little reminders of Gunga on special days. For this party, I used her "foofer" as a decoration...

Only my sisters will appreciate the significance of this, but it brought a smile to face to have my Mommy represented at the party.