Caity's SURPRISE Birthday

Caity had never had an official birthday party where she invited friends. I kind felt like it was a right of passage and I had to do something about it before she got too old for the whole themed birthday concept. (People tell me that happens, not something I know personally, but I recognize it is a possibility.)

 I thought, why not make it a surprise while we were at it?? 

Best idea ever. 

I planned it the week before school started so she could have a chance to connect with her friends one last time before school set in and things got crazy.

I thought an ice-cream sundae bar would be a blast, and just kind of went from there.

And Ice-Cream Party it was!

 I will really happy with how it all turned out. I love a good theme, you know.

Here is what was in the goody bags:

(For the record the fan looks like a cupcake, but is actually an ice-cream cone.) I was really proud of those prize bags! It was all stuff I knew Caity (and therefore girls her age) would love. My favorite was the ice-cream lip gloss. So cute.

SURPRISE!! I really have to hand to the girls, NO ONE spilled the beans. There were 12 girls at the party, it was crazy and so much fun.  I got these confetti poppers at the dollar store, and boy, did they deliver. It took days to get it all cleaned up.

The girls were doing confetti angels, confetti fights, and made designs in the ground. It took a couple minutes for Caity to process this was a birthday party for her. Ha ha. She just thought it was a church activity at our house! When it all clicked she had the biggest smile on her face. She ran up to me when all the other girls were busy, and said "Mom. Thank you! Seriously, I mean, thanks." My heart basically burst in that moment because all the stress preparing produced the result I was hoping for: Caity felt loved.

Party Games:

1. One member on the team held an orange cone, the other two team members had water balloons, the girls had to see how many "scoops" they could catch in the "ice-cream cones."
2. We did a cherry walk. (Much like an egg walk) to see how many cherries a team could get on their sundae.
3. The girls split up into pairs. One girl laid on the ground with a cone in their mouth trying to catch marshmallows the other team member dropped from a chair
4. Pin the cherry on the ice-cream sundae (self explanatory.) 

Note to self: twelve eight to ten year old girls eating bowls of ice cream and candy may lead to some pretty crazy memories. There was a lot of energy. I maybe made everyone eat a banana to balance out some of the sugar!

It was so fun to have a celebration for our Caity-girl. We had so much fun playing and eating ice-cream sundaes. It probably took Caity a week to process it actually happened, ha ha. Birthdays are seriously the best.