To celebrate this milestone, I hatched the idea of a surprise party. Now, I am not sure what put the idea into my head, but since my sweet little girl is such a "Nosy Nellie" I knew that it would be fun to plan something behind her back.
And, plan we did!
One of the hardest parts of the planning was knowing exactly which girls to invite. Though I didn't think about it at first, I ended up inviting eight girls and only seven could come, which turned out to be perfect since the party would be at our church and our tables seat eight. I knew that LB would want to invite our entire home school group, not to mention all the other girls that she knows from church and dance, but that was just impractical, so I had to make the decision on my own.
For the party theme, I chose "Pinterest" ... LB is somewhat obsessed with the site and many times has hi-jacked my account and pinned tons of things to her own boards. As a side note, she has been begging her Daddy and me to let her get her own facebook and pinterest accounts, but we haven't given in on those ... yet. Anyway, back to the party ... I chose to make recipes and crafts for the girls from things that LB and I have found on Pinterest. This is the other part of the surprise that I was worried that LB would wish she could have been in on. It was fun for me, but several times I wished that I could ask her opinion on something without arousing suspicion.
I chose two craft projects for the party ... button bracelets
and glass magnets
Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the girls and their crafts on my phone and I can't find the cord to put the pictures from my camera on the computer, so you'll just have to take my word for the fact that they were cute. I did mess up a little on the glass magnets by not buying the right kind of glue. I used my home made mod podge to make the sample and it worked fine, but I took my time and held the paper in place on the glass until it dried enough, but I forgot to tell the girls to do that, so some of theirs didn't stay glued very well.
For the food, LB had asked for a Kit-Kat cake that I had found on Pinterest several months ago and made for a friend, so that was an easy choice. Then we had chocolate dipped pretzel rods and grapes dipped in caramel and crushed peanuts. I had also planned to dip oreos in white chocolate and sprinkles, but we ran out of time. We did have some, non-Pinterest inspired food, like little smokies and ham sandwiches, but those are hardly worth mentioning ...
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| The cake ... marbled chocolate and yellow cake, iced with white icing and then surrounded by KitKats to make a bowl in the middle for mini M&M's. The candles are another pinterest find... cheap candles with colorful sequins glued on them. Fun, huh? |
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| The girls and the pretzel rods ... I dipped them in chocolate but the girls drizzled the white chocolate and had a GREAT time doing it! |
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| What was left after the girls (and my boys) finished eating |
Of course, you can't have a surprise party without some planning and even a little fibbing to the surprisee ... and this is the part of the party that I couldn't have pulled off without my parents. LB spent the night before the party at their house and then spent the day with them on Friday. It was a good thing that I didn't have to see LB on the day of the party because I am a terrible liar ... as in even a small child can tell if I am not telling the truth! Fortunately, my Mama is better than me and LB had no idea that they weren't really coming to the church to pick us up to go out to eat for her birthday. The girls were hiding in the closet in the kitchen and LB was truly shocked when they came piling out yelling surprise! I only wish I had a picture of the look on her face, but I was videoing and it is stuck in my camera with the rest of the pictures :(
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| LB and her guests ... she still looks a little surprised and overwhelmed here. |
I am thrilled that we were able to pull of the surprise and even more thrilled that LB and her friends had such a good time at her party. Though we usually blame the noise in our house on the boys, I will tell you that 8 pre-teen and teen girls can make A LOT of noise! But, I can handle the noise for one night knowing that she really did have a happy birthday!
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| How we celebrated the actual day ... JW made LB muffins for breakfast! |
