Miss Thang's birthday party

For her eleventh birthday, Amerah wanted a safari birthday... I had my doubts, I thought it was a little "little kiddish" and wracked my brain for ways to make it a little more suitable to her age group.  No luck, but the kids had fun anyway haha...

I'd like to preface this blog post with an explanation so that no one feels left out.  Amerah was limited in the amount of kids she could invite (and I made her invite a lot of family)... usually she invites all her church friends and a couple of school friends.  This time she didn't have enough spaces for her whole class at church and, rather than invite one or two kids and have the others feel left out, she decided that it would be best to invite school friends. It's my fault, I'm the mean number cruncher... if it were up to Amerah she would invite everybody she has ever met.. or said hello to in the street... because she is convinced that EVERYBODY is her friend. We love everyone and don't want anyone to feel excluded but we had to be realistic with our budget. :-)

I was fortunate that Sandy was able to come over the night before to help me decorate and prepare treats and favors.  As usual I had more ideas than I could handle... we even had to scrap a few because we just ran out of time and energy!

We were pretty proud of the end result though... everyone spent most of the evening looking at me like I was crazy as I explained what I wanted done hahaaha but then, not everyone has my imagination (or access to Pinterest :-)

The dining room:

 

 

The entryway... and Lily's rear (no her feet are not really that big!)

 

 The family room (yes that is a Christmas tree - don't judge it's been a rough year!):

 

 The food

 

 

We put bottled water and Capri Sun for the kids, in a tub of ice... Lily was ecstatic!  She thought it was her own personal ice bucket and snitched a piece of ice every time she passed it!

 Dave hadn't gotten home until midnight or so the day of the party and was supposed to have the day off... just as everyone was arriving, he got called in to work because a ship ran aground.  Fortunately, he got another call just before he arrived at work telling him that the ship wasn't stuck anymore and he could go home!  Boy was I glad to see him!  So he and I were both there, just didn't manage to make it into any photos!

We had a "kids" party in the afternoon...

As favors, the kids got safari hats, animal print bandanas, little animal print boxes of animal crackers, and a bag with a tiny stuffed jungle animal... yeah, I know I went a bit overboard haha...

We ordered pizza...

 

 

 

 

 

A good amount of parents stayed too, which was fun

Then it was time for cake... made by my talented friend Shana Bidwell Schaefer

 

 

 

 

And then it was time for presents... (and a too cute photo of one of our little explorers)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sandy and her husband were there of course

The big girls were the last to be picked up so they had fun comparing animals (and no, the dinosaur was not a favor haha!  It's one of Lily's toys - apparently she wanted in on the action!)

 

Amerah with one of her favorite people... Miss Jane

After everyone left, we relaxed for an hour or so before the family arrived for party number two.  I feel like I should explain that we live on a busy street and parking is limited to our driveway, so we split up the party just to make it doable (and less packed inside the house too!).

We had ordered a four foot sub from Subway, and more pizza and, although Amerah was getting pretty worn out, we really enjoyed a nice low key evening with family after the craziness of the afternoon!

 

 

 

 

This time Amerah remembered to make a wish when she blew out the candles on the cake...

 

 

I can't remember what Uncle Rick did to deserve THIS look...

 

Then more presents...

 

The moment she realized that Sunshine and Shaun put money in the book hahaha

She got some fun, musical cards...

 

 

Again, no clue what warranted THIS expression...

 

 

 

The moment when she realized exactly how much money she got...

You can bet that the following look was prompted by Uncle Rick again...

And last but not least... she was sooooo excited when she opened Nanny's present to find a little camcorder!

 

 Even though nearly every one had left by this time, we were really happy that Angel brought Alexis by.  Alexis had been unable to attend the party because she had gashed her head open on some playground equipment and had to have nine staples in her head!  Here she is with her Grandpa Roy, still smiling even after all that!

Happy birthday to my big eleven year old!  Next year we're doing a simple slumber party... less prep work!