Anatomy of a Birthday Party

The planning of Grace's birthday party has been in the works for a few weeks now, but even so it felt AWFULLY last minute as I threw everything together this afternoon.  The good news is that I survived -- AND it was a success!  I'm a big believer in having the number of guests invited equal the age of the child whose birthday it is.  Thus, Grace invited 8 friends over for her very first all girl party.  That part was really important apparently.  Boys are anathema now {as are little sisters} and Grace was very insistent that only her girl friends were allowed to come.  And since Sophie and Jane didn't make that cut, Scott so graciously took them all off my hands this afternoon so I could run the party without any stress.

My biggest worry going into the party was that we didn't have enough planned to fill the whole hour and a half.  When we had Sophie's birthday party earlier this year we seemed to run into that a lot.  Activities that we thought would keep them occupied for 15 or 20 minutes ended up only lasting 5.  That sort of thing.  But for Grace's party today I was pleasantly surprised to see how long everyone's attention span was for the activities we had on the agenda.  So, without further ado here is the anatomy of an 8-year-old girl's birthday extravaganza.  

Up first?  A little birthday banner.  I bought a roll of banner paper at Michael's this morning and got out our bucket of art supplies -- crayons, markers, colored pencils, etc. -- and set it up in the middle of the living room floor.  I figured this would be a good, open-ended activity to work on while waiting for everyone to get there.  I bubble-lettered out a "Happy Birthday, Grace!" and let the girls get to work.  And color me impressed!  This was one artsy and talented group of girls.  As an added bonus, they spent a dedicated HALF an HOUR on the banner before they were ready to move on to the next item on the agenda.

  

 Mary, Grace, Haela, Amy

 

 The finished sign hanging in the dining room.

The main activity of the party was the decorating of Haunted {Gingerbread} Houses.  If this idea seems familiar, it's because it is -- we totally recycled the idea from Grace's last friend birthday party when she turned 5.  Hahaha.  The benefit of having a birthday right after Halloween is all the discounted junk that can be reused for party items and decor.  I wisely assembled all the houses before the girls got there using graham crackers and royal icing, and boy was I glad I did.  For some reason, year after year, I manage to fool myself into thinking that making these things are not that big a deal and that they're "fun" and "easy" to do.  And then every year I find myself covered in sticky, white {and gross} icing with broken and discarded graham crackers and crumbs all around me as I try to "glue" the houses together to ready them for the decorations.  It's not that easy or fun.  Buying the pre-packaged, ready-to-go kits is really the only way to do it.  Hopefully, I will remember this lesson by the time Christmas rolls around.  All in all, though, I'm glad we did it because the girls REALLY had fun decorating and it used up a lot of that Halloween candy!  I was surprised once again with how long they were able to stick to the activity at hand and how much attention and detail went into their creations.  I should hang around Grace and her friends more often!  Hahaha. 

 Cute little girlie bugs hard at work.  :)

My transitional activity for once the houses were done and I was trying to clean up the dining room was a little nail painting action in the kitchen.  I got down my bucket of nail polish and remover and set it in the middle of the table for the girls to help themselves while I cleaned up the dining room and got things ready for the cake and ice cream and presents.  I was a bit apprehensive leaving this all up to the girls without my immediate supervision, but everything worked out well enough, and once I was done cleaning we moved right along to the present opening without too much trouble.

The girls started to get a little hyper once Grace began opening things up, and I was glad that Scott got home a few minutes into that ordeal and was able to start getting the cake and ice cream ready  for when we were done.  At this point there's was only 15 minutes left in the party and I was shocked to see how well we filled the time!  I managed to snap a picture of the whole group before we moved on, but the lighting in our living room is kind of terrible, and I don't think it came out that well. 

After singing happy birthday and cutting some cake, the first of the parents started to arrive and we were able to visit a bit with them before the party ended.  Overall, I would say it was a big success.  Grace scored in the present department and when I asked her tonight if she had fun she answered with a big, "YES!!!"  Always nice to hear.  And to make everything even better, the kids all went to bed rather easily and fell almost right asleep.  Pretty much a perfect ending to the day!  Hahaha.

Grace is lucky to have such a fun, good group of girls to be friends with.  I was impressed with how sweet and friendly they all were.  I worry sometimes about girls being catty or mean or clique-y, but this group was really great.  It was a good day.  :)

{Made even good-er knowing I won't have to plan another friend party until Jane turns 5 in another couple of years.}