Birthday Season - Part 2

Ahh, now I can relax. Birthday season is finally over. Well, OK, maybe I can't relax, but I'm officially out of party-planning mode for a while.

The slide show above features pics from Amanda's birthday festivities, as well as a couple of others we've had in the last week or two.

On her actual birthday, Amanda had to go to school, so she didn't get the all-day special treatment like Brendan did. But we still tried to make a nice day for her. We started out with the traditional "candle in the breakfast". (a silly thing that Kevin started a couple of years ago, but the kids love it - we put candles in pretty much everything they eat on their birthdays.) We gave her a couple of presents in the morning, and she got to bring birthday cupcakes to school. She got to play with her new Webkinz after school, and then she opened the rest of her presents. She got a pink digital camera, a mini Robo-panda, panda pajamas, monkey slippers, a fuzzy blanket and pillow for her room, and some new earrings. And then we took her out to dinner at a Japanese steakhouse/hibachi restaurant. After dinner we went home, and she put on her pink satin panda pajamas, and blew out the candles on her pink girly cake (complete with gummy bears of course!) All in all, it was definitely an Amanda-Panda kind of day!!

The next day was her friend Deanna's birthday. (weird huh - best friends with birthdays a day apart) More girly fun at Build-a-Bear. I got such a kick out of watching the two girls walking through the mall with their shopping bags - looks like a glimpse into the future...

Later that same day, we had to go to my nephew's first birthday party. I can't post pics here, because my brother is paranoid and doesn't want his son's face on the internet, but I did include in my slide show a picture of the Superman cake I made for the event. (The week before, at my baseball bash, my brother and sister-in-law liked my "Mets" cake so much that they asked me to do the Superman one for David's party. How could I refuse??)

Then for the rest of the week, it was time to prepare for the "grand finale of Birthday Season" - Amanda's Sleepover party. You'd think it would be simple - just invite a few girls, rent some movies, make some popcorn - TaDa - a sleepover party. Well, I don't know if it's just because Amanda is my girl and she's learned to go over the top, or because kids in general expect more these days, or what - but Amanda kept asking me "what are we going to DO at my sleepover???" So of course, being the party-planner that I am, I went a little overboard.

I took them to Plaster Funcraft so they could each paint a project. Then back to the house for pizza and cake. We made beaded jewelry, they autographed/personalized a pillowcase for Amanda, they played Twister - a lot, they watched TV, we did manicures and pedicures, Mad Libs, etc. The only problem was that they couldn't watch any of the DVD's I rented for them, because our makeshift DVD player (PlayStation console) which always worked fine before, decided not to work that night. But in spite of the technical difficulties, the girls found plenty of things to do to keep them entertained, and they stayed up until almost 2AM!!!

NOW I AM BEAT!!!!!!!!!!

It was worth it though - the girls had a really great time and they all said it was the best sleepover ever.

And now Birthday Season is officially OVER. All that's left to do is write thank you notes.

And add up the receipts to find out what it all cost - YIKES!!!