Lauren's Faux Slumber Party

Lauren celebrated her 5th birthday with a Faux (fake) Slumber Party last Saturday. That morning we all cleaned up the house in preparation for the birthday party. It's amazing how much work I got out of Lauren just by getting her excited for her party.

She scrubbed the crayon and marker off the walls.

She used half a bottle of glass cleaner to clean the 8x8 inch glass coffee table.
I didn't say a word. I choose to pick my battles and how she cleans is not one of them.

While Lauren cleaned I did some preparing. I wasn't sure how much time I would have in between activities to prepare for the next one.

I put flat pieces of cardboard inside pillow cases and put out some colored permanent markers and some fabric paint.

Then I prepped the gift bags and plastic & paperware. Drinks for the evening were Rootbeer (caffeine free of course) and also strawberry-kiwi Juice-Water. (Juice-Water aka J-Dub is my own invention of 1/2 juice and 1/2 water...it's all my kids know)

(fyi about the above picture: I've been asked before what the huge white spaceship looking thing is on my counter. The toaster is the smaller white rectangular box and next to it is the spaceship thingy. It's a wireless weather-resistant speaker so I can listen to my XM Radio (most often Dr. Laura and the Coffeehouse music station) in the kitchen.)


Lauren's Tinker Bell cake.

She chose this out of a gazillion options in the Walmart cake book.

(Yes, Walmart...I'm on a budget)

Popcorn and bowls also ready.

At 5:30pm the girls started to arrive. The parents all dropped the kids off but lucky for Matt one Dad stayed to hang out. He and Matt got to hang out and throw some darts in the basement.

The girls all wore PJs and brought their sleeping bags and pillows. (4 out of 8 sleeping bags were Disney Princess. I may have to update Lauren's Sesame Street bag into something more her age.) I think every party I throw will be a PJ party because I got to wear my PJs too and be super comfy.

We started off decorating the pillow cases. I think they had fun making their very own designs and pictures. I wish I had them all sign their name on Lauren's pillow case.....next time I will.

Somehow I forgot to buy a pillow case for Tyler. This almost turned into a Huge mistake because he insisted on doing Every.Thing. the girls did. I ended up grabbing one of his white undershirts and let him decorate that. (whew, crisis averted)

After decorating the pillow cases we had some free play before the Pizza arrived. Since our family of 4 can eat a large pizza ourselves (2 pieces each) for the 9 kids and 3 adults at the party we bought 3 large pizzas, bread sticks, and 6 super spicy boneless chicken wings--for Matt and I only of course. This was a huge over-estimate. I didn't take into account that the girls would be way too excited to eat (only a couple kids had more than one piece each.) It all worked out though because we had left-over pizza & breadsticks for breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day.

Our kitchen table fits 9 quite comfortably don't you think?!

After dinner Lauren opened her presents. I forgot to take a picture of them before but here's what the wrapping paper looked like afterwards.

Wrapping Paper Fight!!

(good thing you can recycle the paper whole or shredded)

Lauren scored in the present department. She got only things she absolutely adores.

4 different Littlest Pet Shop sets (we didn't have any of them already!!)

a 100 piece puzzle

mess free Crayola paint set & sketch/paint pad (I love this!)

Barbie book with stickers

2 new Barbies and some Barbie clothes

After presents it was Cake time.

ready to blow out her 5 candles

blowing out the candles in that "special" Lauren way

(I wish there was a way I could have sanitized the cake before I served it but I suppose it will just help everyone build up their immunity. sorry.)

After filling up on pizza, cake, juice-water and lots of soda ...

soda is sure a treat in our house (for the kids at least) and I'm thinking it is a treat in most of the guests' houses too...based on how many refills were requested!!

...we had some more free-play time to Play Off some of the built up energy.

seriously! they are having fun! I think...

At 8pm we headed down to the basement where the sleeping bags were all laid out. Popcorn was served and Cinderella III was played. (yes there are three Cinderella's)

Does it get any cuter?!! I think not!

(check out Tyler in the center of the room...

...he Had to be included)

Only a couple of girls lasted the whole movie. There were just too many friends to play with and new toys to be checked out. When they lost interest in the movie they made their way upstairs to play with toys, new and old.

At 9:30pm the parents came to pick up their sugar-infused, full of soda, enthusiastic and up way-too-late children.

All in all the party turned out FABULOUS. The personalities all flowed together and there were absolutely no fights and no tears. What can I say...Lauren picks herself some good friends.

I would absolutely do it again. The only thing I would change (for the 5 year old age at least) is the length of time. My intention was for the girls to settle down and watch the movie and be calm and sleepy in their sleeping bags when their parents arrived. If the party had ended just 30 min. earlier I believe that would have been the case. If you plan to have a Faux Slumber Party (and I highly recommend it) plan for 3 and a half hours and I think you'll have it made.

I hope this 5th birthday party is a permanent memory for Lauren because it sure will be for me.

Although the previous line would have been a perfect ending to this blog post...

...I just want to be clear and quite possibly point out something you didn’t even notice anyway. Regarding my previous post below, I prepared most of it (pictures and captions) but didn’t have time to review and finish because I had to rush off to my monthly Bunco game. I kindly asked Matt to finish it for me. He got all his creative juices flowing and came up with........... [drumroll] “later…” The man can paint, draw, photograph, and build just about anything, however, his creative writing skills need to be worked on for sure.

Just so you know I would Never use the word “later” to end a conversation, phone call, e-mail or Blog Post!

(I always use L8R.)