Celebrating Rachel's 10th Birthday

We celebrated Rachel's 10th birthday as a family on the actual day. She requested beef stew (go figure) for dinner and we had a cookie cake. Rachel doesn't like frosting (she so does not get that from me) and prefers cookie cakes.

The problem with beef stew is that it is hard to serve on our celebration plate. I just set her bowl on the plate so she could use it on her special day.

Rachel didn't really ask for anything for her birthday this year. P.K. and I had a hard time deciding what to get her. We finally decided to buy her a pet. That is a hard gift to wrap so we had her close her eyes. She covered her ears just in case her brother or sister let it slip before she opened her eyes.

She was thrilled. It is a blue Beta which she named Flash.

The Friday after her birthday she was able to celebrate with some of her friends. She wanted a sleepover for her party.

She told me she wasn't really into themes for decorations anymore (just break my heart...we all know I love to decorate for a good party). She just wanted orange and pink. I covered the table with an orange tablecloth and bought some orange and pink balloons. It was very simple, but festive.

She invited three of her friends from school and one friend from her Girl Scout troop.

Aaron did not want to sit with all of those girls at first. Although, they were all very gracious to Aaron and Hannah and included them in the entire party.

After pizza, they all sat down to work on a craft. I found some nice wooden frames at the craft store. They painted them and then after the frames dried we added some woodsies. They were all very serious about their work and made some beautiful frames.

A couple of the finished products.

We were waiting for everyone to finish up and one of the girls asked if they could play with the fusion beads. Why not? They took about another hour with this creation. Fusion beads come with plastic trays that are used as patterns. Little plastic beads are placed on the patterns and then ironed to melt them together. My kids love these and Rachel's guests did, too.

After the crafts, we had cake. Rachel is saying, "Happy birthday to me."

I don't remember what she is opening here, but that is her happy face.

More happiness.

Rachel had a Girl Scout activity scheduled for the day after her party, so from the beginning I told her she and her friends had to go to sleep at a semi-decent hour. I was trying for 10:00, but adding the fusion bead activity put us behind a bit. They spread their sleeping bags out in Rachel's room and then settled down in the family room to watch Race to Witch Mountain. I fell asleep, but luckily heard the girls moving around when the movie was over. Much to my surprise, they did go straight to bed after the movie and everyone was asleep by 10:45ish. Of course, they were all up at 6:30 in the morning.

Aaron wanted to show the girls King Cal. Once the girls saw Aaron holding the snake, they all wanted to touch it.

After they touched him, they wanted to hold him. I was a bit surprised. I wasn't sure how their parents would feel about that, but I let them under heavy supervision.

Then we washed hands and it was time for breakfast.

We made yogurt parfaits. This was so simple, fun and yummy. I found the parfait glasses on clearance for thirty one cents. I couldn't believe it. They are heavy glass. We will get lots of use out of those. I put the yogurt and berries in some pretty dishes and let the kids assemble their own. We also had granola which I forgot about until the girls sat down.

I didn't have any activities planned past breakfast. The kids asked if they could use Sharpies to decorate the balloons.

Rachel

Aaron

Hannah

After they finished decorating the balloons, they played a board game. Then all the parents showed up at once.

I think this is one of the easiest parties we have ever done. Probably because the kids are older and this is the first time Rachel has chosen specific kids to come. We usually invite all the girls in her class. These were her best friends. I was able to just call the parents and invite them over. I think she had a very happy birthday.