Two Birthday Parties . . . 13 Hours Apart; Part One

My two oldest are both June babies.  June parties are awesome, but having two in one month is challenging.

In April, my husband and I looked at our June schedules and planned when we could squeeze in D and J's birthday parties. (Because I am that mom that LOVES a party and my kids get one every year.) 

We only had one week that could work for their parties.  And as June drew closer, we realized that we had two days that they would work.

D turned 12, so we opted for a "late over" with the girls going home at ten.  J wanted a Capture the Flag party, we went with a lunch BBQ.  It ended up that the end of D's party and the start of J's were 13 hours apart.  Both kids invited over 30 people.  Gratefully only 20 showed up at each.

D wanted a Gnomeo and Juliet party.  We started the night with stations (after giving each girl either a red or a blue gnome hat, or uh, party hat):

• Make Your Own Pizza Bar
• Eat Your Pizza
• Make Friendship Bracelets (that are red and blue, to show the Montague's and Capulet's united)using embroidery floss
• And make your own Sculpey Gnome

I ended up cooking mini pizzas for 2 hours!

I used these mini pie tins from the dollar store. (I only bought 12 and re-used them.  Next time I will buy one for each person and write their name on the outside.  It got kinda crazy trying to figure out which pizza belonged to which tween.)

And five batches of pizza dough.  1.5 batches of sauce. (All worthy of their own post.)  I set all the ingredients on the kitchen table and the girls built their pizza as they saw fit.  My son had sausage and pineapple.  So not appetizing to me.

The bracelets turned out super cute in embroidery floss. (One week later and girls are still wearing theirs.)  Again, these type of Friendship Bracelets are quick and take friendship to make.

The gnomes were fun to make as well. (No pics.  I was too busy making pizza)  I covered my cookie sheet in foil and then wrote each girl's name under her gnome.  We added a jump ring to his head and after they were all cooked and hard we added a key chain fob.  I hope they will put them on their backpacks.  (A mom can dream can't she?)

After everyone had eaten, we finally started the movie.

(Sorry faces are blurred, that is on purpose)

The twenty girls settled down into my little front room and watched the movie. (I crashed upstairs for a much needed breather. Steve had to sneak away at this point too for a meeting.)  It was fun to hear them squeal and laugh and cheer.

After the show D opened presents and we had Ice Cream Cake (see above).  S makes one heck of a mean ice cream cake.  (Awesome enough that he really wants to start a cake delivery business.)  And then we bid the girls good night!

I was exhausted and crashed... See part two later on.