She invited 9 girls, so that (including Tessa) we would have a total of 10 screeching 7 year olds. All but 1 girl made it, though 1 came late and 1 left early.
I ordered the invitations (a Hicks design) from my favorite paper store and printed them myself at home. The wording says "Please join us for a sleep over/late over"
In case you are wondering what a "late over" is, I'll enlighten you.
A late over is what we paranoid and over-protective parents do instead of the oh-so-scary sleep over. Girls are dropped off early in the evening (our party started at 5:00) and picked up late the same night (10:00 for our guests.) They get to have dinner, wear jammies and play in the dark, but sleep at home in their own bed.
I was about 99% sure that we'd be sending all of Tessa's classmates home long before morning, and I wasn't disappointed. Summit Academy hosts a lot of over protective parents ;)
Only Tessa's long time friend, Isabella, spent the night. Matt and I have known Isabella's parents, Chris and Arna, since we were 16. Arna was a teacher at our high school. When I was 17 I spent 3 days at their house, watching their older son, Conner, while they were out of town. I've been proven trust-worthy several times over, I think. And Tessa and Bella were thrilled to have a sleepover. They go to different schools and don't see each other too much during the school
year.
Anyway - long tangent there. Sorry about that.
Before the party started I made the girls squish on the couch together so I could take their picture. Tessa, as usual, wouldn't look at the camera. When I told her to LOOK at me she cried "I am!" and burst into tears. Over excited? Maybe. She was fine for the rest of the evening after that. I took pictures of her "it's my party and I'll cry if I want to" moment. You can see them on photobucket.
From left to right:
Grace C., Grace P., Charlotte, Tessa, Bella, Audrey, Luci, Camryn.
(Grace J. showed up later. Lots of Grace's at this age.)
The party began at 5:00, and almost all the girls were right on time (shocking - a Friday night Birthday party and parents were on time? I guess free babysitting like that deserves the respect of punctuality, lol)
They played outside until about 6:30, when Matt got back with the pizza's.
The weather had been nice most of the week, but turned cold that evening. Tessa had planned to eat pizza outside on the patio table, and everything was set up, but it ended up being too chilly.
Instead we spread an old flat sheet on the carpet and had an indoor picnic. The girls seemed to enjoy themselves, as did Asher (who stayed right in the thick of things until bedtime)
After dinner Asher went to bed (he cried when we took him away from the party, but fell asleep without a fight) but first he insisted on having his picture taken.
Then Tessa opened her gifts. She got lots of cute things, and a few things mommy will be taking back, too. Thank goodness for Wal Mart's forgiving return policy!
Once Tessa had opened her gifts, she brought each of the girls their party favors.
I bought re-usable cloth bags from the dollar section at Target and appliqued each girls initial to the front. Inside was a plain white nightgown for them to decorate.
I made two of them, then talked my mom into doing the rest for me. She made them on her serger and sewed them with pink thread so they had a cute outline. They had a strip of lace across the top and at the bottom I wrote each girls name in fancy script.
For our activity the girls got to decorate their gowns with fabric markers and iron on appliques (with my help, of course) they had so much fun working on them and each girl seemed to love her creation.
After they had decorated their nightgowns the girls wanted to put them on. Of course I said yes! The plan then was to watch a movie, but I could hear them scheming in the other room, talking about a fashion show. So I pulled out the Flip and talked Matt into video taping them while I took stills (he was dead-set against being the 'creepy guy with the video camera' but I didn't give him much of a choice.)
They were SO cute. A couple of these girls have obviously been watching ANTM!
We had music on - I plugged in my Ipod and found one of Tessa's favorite songs - Nothing In This World by Paris Hilton - though you can't hear it very well on the video.
BTW - ignore my voice! If that's how I sound in real life, I don't want to know!
After the fashion show we had cupcakes and ice cream and then watched the movie.
The girls were really very good. Matt and I were playing guitar hero in the bedroom and only had to come out to tell them to settle down 2 or 3 times.
Parents started arriving at 9:50 and the last girl was picked up at 10:20. Bella spent the night and I think they were asleep by 11:00.
The party turned out really cute and was totally painless.
It was really fun and Tessa had a blast. Party #1 was a success!
(More pictures on photobucket.)
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