She's 10!

Well, technically she's not ten until the end of the month, but we had the party this weekend for scheduling reasons.  She wanted an overnight party so yes, we had six giggling girls ALL NIGHT Saturday night.  Whew!

First they had to design and sketch out what they were going to do with the pillowcases (and pillows!) we bought for them to decorate.

Then they painted, markered, and ironed on all kinds of different things to their pillowcases for that personalized touch.  (And to have something nice and quiet to keep them busy the first hour as everyone arrived.)

It didn't take long for the sugar and adrenaline to kick in, though!  Here's all six playing music and coupling up for dance partners.  This was not on the agenda but was one of my favorite moments.

Then they ate pizza and junk and listened to teeny-bopper music.  Next up was the Wii Just Dance excitement. I got tired just watching this. But not those guys, no. Nothing made them tired!

After it got dark, the most exciting part was the Scavenger Hunt.  As you may recall from last year, My Lovely Bride can go all out for these parties.  This year she decided to reign it in, but still found a creative outlet with this hunt. They were given an envelope with a clue which led them to a box of personalized flashlights and another clue which led them all through the neighborhood (yes, we warned the neighbors) in a giggling frenzy for each clue and item.  They ended up with stick on mustaches (I don't know why but it's a thing) and some stuffed monkeys (again, I don't know why but they loved 'em) and other stuff.

Yes, pink fuzzy mustaches.  One girl made it her "unibrow."  Yes, they're all that crazy and wonderful. Then we had a fire and roasted marshmallows and such.  They started being pyros with their sticks and one girls said, "I can't believe you're letting children DO this!"  Don't worry, it was safe.  My other favorite line of the night was from another girl.  When I said something about how they were already wearing me out she said, with a glint in her eye, "If you think this is bad, you're not going to make it through the night!"

But we did.  We made it through the night and they even got some sleep.  After the fire they jammied up and watched the Princess Bride.  They even had peanuts for when the giant asks about peanuts.  I know!

In the morning was breakfast and more music, gift exchanging and playing around outside until the parentals came to pick them off one by one.  They all have iPods and text each other.  In the middle of the morning I had this text exchange with my daughter:

We are cheeseballs. But yeah, while they were celebrating her birthday I was celebrating her having such fun, smart, cool and interesting friends.