A lil' bit of insanity and a whole lotta fun!

Khasia had a slumber party last night for her 10th birthday party. For some reason, even though I know better, I go by the old adage of expecting about half of the invited guests to actually attend. So, if we want six girls, we invite 12, right? Nah, we had 9 girls last night, not to mention my own 4 darlings, so it was a pretty full house. (In the past, we have had instances of 100% of invites showing up, so I really should learn!).

My philosophy on parties is to keep them busy with activities, as that generally cuts down on the run-around-screaming-and-wreaking-havoc wildness that otherwise ensues, especially with the pre-teen age group. It worked to an extent, but they were still pretty rowdy in between activities. Our schedule went something like this:

6:00 Arrival: We had a painting ceramics craft set up for the girls to do as they arrived, so they started out the evening by sitting down, chatting quietly, and painting figurines.
6:30 Dinner: We had Little Caesar's Pizza, chips, and pop for dinner.
7:00 Cupcakes: For Khasia's actual birthday (on the 7th), she got a 'real' cupcake maker, so as each child arrived, they chose a cake flavor. Robert then made up the cake batter, cooked them in the maker, and had them cooling, so that by 7:00 they were ready to decorate. We set out a variety of frostings and sprinkles and let them go at it. After about 15 minutes of that, we put candles in Khasia's cupcake and sang Happy Birthday to her. We then added a scoop of ice cream to everyone's plate and they all ate their dessert (although a lot of the girls didn't really eat much of their cake...I've noticed that's fairly normal at birthday parties).
7:30 Presents: Once the dessert was cleaned up, we had Khasia open her gifts. She's good about taking her time to make the 'fun' last a little longer. She got some great presents, which is surprising, since it's so hard to know what to get pre-teens.
8:00 Crafts: The girls made bracelets out of beads while I called two at a time over to the kitchen counter to tie dye t-shirts. This was a fairly long process, but we got everyone through eventually. And I'm pretty sure we were able to do it without anyone getting any dye on the clothes they were wearing.
9:30 Nail Polish: Everyone painted their own nails or partnered up to paint each others. We had bought a selection of new polishes, so once the painting was done, I let everyone choose a color and those polishes went into their take-home gift bags. (Oh, and one of the girls who was not spending the night went home at this time).
10:30 Movies: We made big batches of popcorn and sent all the girls upstairs to spread out sleeping bags and start watching the first of several movies we had rented for them. (The other girl who didn't spend the night went home a few minutes after the movie got started; the rest stayed the night).
11:00: I went to bed around this time. Everyone was still watching the movie and enjoying their popcorn.
2:00am: Robert said he stayed up until about 2:00 and that the girls were all still awake and pretty wild, so the movie watching must have been getting old by that point.
5:00am: I woke up (this is my normal time to wake up to get Arriah to her religion class, so it's habit). There were huge piles of toilet paper around the house, so they had tried to TP the inside of our house, but I guess one of the girls kept tearing it down...they made it into piles instead). I used this time to finish up the tie dye shirts, meaning I took off all the rubber bands and put them into the washing machine. It was about 6:00 when I got back in bed. There were two girls asleep at that time, but the rest were either playing computer games, playing with toys (Barbies?) in Shaya's room, or just sitting around chatting. I put on another movie before I went back to bed.
8:30am: I meant to get back up at 8:00, but my alarm wasn't set properly, so I got up a little later than I should have. First, I put the shirts in the dryer, then I went and woke everyone up. Braelen and one of the girls who was asleep at 5:00 were awake; everyone else was sleeping and they were not easy to wake up. Eventually, though, they all got up and put their stuff by the front door. Some ate cinnamon rolls or donuts for breakfast, while the others just sat in a tired daze.
9:00am: Pick up was supposed to be at 9:00, but it took a good 30 or 40 minutes for all the parents to arrive and get their girls out the door. Leah, my niece, left closer to 10:00.

And no, it wasn't as smooth running as my schedule makes it sound. In between each activity the girls were all up, running around and screaming. At one point they played freeze tag, which definitely got wild. At another point, they were all royalty, or servants of, and pretending various things. Another time, one girl was stealing everyone's socks and being chased around the house. They also played one of the board games that was given as a gift to Khasia earlier.

It was a bit crazy at times, but I think it was overall a fun-filled night :-)

P.S. I need to figure out how to add pictures!