Party Time

 Hannah's been very excited to plan her birthday party.  We have talked about it on and off most of the summer.  She wanted a "smores" theme and to swim.  We had planned to swim for 3 hours, come home and have dinner and a smore bar outside by the fire pit, open presents, play a game and then watch a movie.

 But the weather did not cooperate.  It was raining and storming. 
I kept hoping it would clear but about half an hour before the guests arrived I realized I'd better come up with a plan B.

 We moved the smore bar inside, and when the girls arrived Hannah gave them their "thank you for coming goodies" right away.  We had made shirts for each girl that said BFF and had marshmallows on a stick with happy faces on them.  The girls changed and then we were ready for some inside fun.

 bottom row: Ariel, Julia, Melanie, Chelsea

middle row: Hannah, Lu, Ally, Ellie, Bethany

top row: Ethan

The first thing we did was play a candy game.  I had a list of clues and they had to write down what candy they thought matched the clue.  For example evil laugh = snickers, or slippery digit = butterfinger. 

The next game was the kids had to put paper plates on their heads and draw a picture Hannah on top of the plate without looking . Then I collected the plates without them seeing and they voted for the best one.  Melanie won.  The kids voted by dropping a starburst on the plate they liked the best, which they thought was fun.

Then I divided them into two teams and put a bunch of ingredients onto the counter and let them create a cake.  They really thought that was fun.  While the cakes were baking I made dinner and they frolicked around the house (read: did each others hair).  Hannah chose Monte Cristo sandwiches for dinner, we severed a very nutritious side of soda and chips.   When dinner was over we played Lous Groups and opened gifts.  Hannah loved everything she got.  Next on the agenda was cake.  I served them a piece of each one and they judged their favorites.  Turns out both cakes were given a rating of "gross", however they loved making them. 

At this point I was running out of last minute ideas and turned on a movie, which they watched for 10 minutes and then ran upstairs to try on make up and make a lot of  noise.  Which was great.  At the end of the party we microwaved smores and said "Thank you for coming!"

So it rained the whole time and instead of some easy breezy hours at the pool with no clean up we had a lot of running and laughing and mess but we had a very happy birthday girl and a fun celebration.