Sophee's 7th Birthday

Sophee had her 7th birthday last month. She campaigned hard to get me to let her have a 'real party, with friends-not just family members'. The other 2 girls jumped on board the campaign wagon, knowing that if I'd give in to Soph, then they'd get a 'real party' too.

So, I caved. Her birthday was on a Tuesday, and the party wasn't until that Saturday so we let her open her presents from us the morning of her birthday, and I took these cupcakes into her class:
They are chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and half a peanut butter cup (Soph's most favorite candy ever!) *On a side note, I did make a few 'back up' cupcakes in case anyone in her class was allergic to PB.

Here she is the day of her party:

The 'conditions' on which I gave the girls for their b-day parties this year were:

#1-it had to be at home

#2-it had to be simple

#3-I was not going to buy a bunch of crap to put in 'goody bags' that would just get thrown out anyway.

So, we came up with the idea that we would have a 'cupcake dance party'. I put all Soph's favorite dance songs onto a playlist and had the music playing when the girls walked in. We pushed the couches out of the way to make a bigger 'dance floor' and I got some cheapy play microphones (4/$1) at dollar tree and gave each girl one to 'rock out' with as they came in. The girls had a 'dance party' until everyone arrived, then I sent Kory out for pizza (Little Ceasars $5 pizza I love you). I figured if I had to have these kids for a couple of hours I might as well do it at lunch time. Just feeding them would take up at least 20 minutes. So we did pizza and juice boxes. Easy peasy. Are you seeing a theme here yet??

Next we decorated cupcakes. I wasn't exactly sure how many kids were going to show up, so I made a ton of cupcakes. Here's all the sugary goodness:

Decorating the cupcakes served 2 purposes. The first being entertainment-of course, and the second was that I put their finished product (4 cupcakes for each child) onto a cute paper plate and wrapped it for them to take home (along with one of the helium balloons used for decorations, and their play microphone) that was their take home 'goody' without me having to spend a lot of money on them. See how resourceful I am?? I know, it kills me.

So here are the girls in action. We had 8 girls show up, so the table was full!!
(I had to stick Audree and Josh in the diningroom).

They all had a blast, and loved decorating their cupcakes! Oh, and we played a few games too:

Then came Sophee's favorite part, opening the presents:

I just had to include this picture of the cute dress Sophee's school teacher got her:
(BTW, she is growing out her bangs to look 'just like Kaylee')

Ok, back to the party. Here is Sophee with her brownie/ice cream cake that is filled with-once again-Peanut Butter Cups. The ice cream cake was a decision I made to make my life at the party easier. With this cake I didn't have to dish up any ice cream, or figure out which kid wanted only cake, or only ice cream, or both. Yes, I know, I'm a genius. Apparently it turned out to be very yummy. I wouldn't know though, as I'm still off chocolate.

When we were filling out invitations Sophee insisted that we invite her school teacher. I agreed that we could give her an invitation but warned her that her teacher probably wouldn't be able to come, since teacher's don't want to spend all their Saturday's off at every students b-day party. (I was trying to prepare her for the disappoint when her teacher didn't show up but . . .)

Sure enough she did show up . . . at the end of the party. Apparently she lost track of time doing some gardening and when she realized what time it was she rushed over, in her grubbies and all, but we didn't care-Soph was super excited that she came!!

Sophee and her teacher, Ms. Dunzweiler:

What a great way to end a great party. The good news is that Audree thought it was so fun she is thinking she'd like to do the same party. Whew!! That will make my life easier. As for Kaylee, well, she's still in the planning stages. Anyone have any ideas on how to have a cool teenager party at home??

I'm stumped, and quite frankly, a little terrified at the thought of having to entertain a bunch of 13 year old girls.