Claire's 8th Birthday Party

Claire had her 8th birthday party today and she had the best time!  This was the first time we didn't invite every girl in the class because it is just too many girls in one place!  There are two classes per grade at St. Christopher and between 2A and 2B, there are forty-four girls in second grade!  We had all of them over last year for Claire's party and as soon as they were all here and running around the house and yard, we knew that we were WAY out numbered!  So this year, I told Claire that she could invite twenty girls.  This was hard for Claire and for me, too.  It is so much easier to invite all the girls because then there are no hurt feelings.  But due to the massive amounts of girls in her class, we had to do it this way.

Claire loves to have her party at the house.  When I was her age, I did too.  My Mom and Dad were amazing with at-home parties.  They always went the extra mile and I used to be so proud to have my friends come over and celebrate with me!  Claire decided that she wanted the theme of her party to be 'Dinner & A Movie".  I thought that was a fantastic idea!!!  After sending out the invite, seventeen girls said they could come!  That is still a big number but much better than the year before.

We started her party off with a craft.  These girls are so good at focusing on a project so we knew that part of the three hour party would include something crafty.  Claire and I decided to make journals for the girls.  I covered composition books with fabric and then at the party, the girls got to mod podge on a title, little paper polka dots, and yellow and diamond jewels.  They had a blast doing this!  This would also serve as their take home favor.  I knew the girls would like this craft but I was surprised how into it they were!  I had pre-sorted their own polka dots and jewels as well as their title card.  They really took their time to achieve the look they wanted.  When their parents came to pick them up at the end of the party, you should have seen how proud the girls were to show their parents what they had made!

Once we were done with the journals, we had the girls fill out their very own dinner menu (picked by Claire).  They put their name on their menu and then went down the list of possibilities and checked what they wanted.  We told them that during the movie- we would come and hand deliver each girl their own customized dinner.  This idea was a huge hit and they asked if we could have a dinner party every Saturday night!  We brought the girls into the family room where they settled into to watch the movie.  Claire and I had decided on the Lindsay Lohan version of The Parent Trap.  It is such a cute, age-appropriate movie for these girls.  I was just hoping none of them knew anything about what Lohan was up to these days! 

The girls made it one hour and forty-five minutes through the two hour movie before they needed to move around.  How brilliant is it to have a movie at a birthday party?  We had a lot of time where we just stood around thinking this was just too easy!  The girls burst into the backyard where they played with all the toys and eventually battled each other in a few games of Simon Says.  Then came the cupcakes!  Claire was just so giddy when the girls sang to her. She enjoyed every minute of it and really felt the love from her friends. 

When the party was over- we were so relieved.  The last twenty minutes, (about the time the sugar has fully set in) are always the hardest!  The girls were running around everywhere and just so energized.  The parents seem to come all at once and before we knew it- they were all gone!  We were so blessed to have Heavenly here helping out tonight.  She was amazing.  She helped with Emily and also helped keep the girls focused and entertained.  We couldn't have done it without her help!  Claire, Emily, Matthew, Damien, Heavenly and I sat down and enjoyed the stillness of the house and watched Claire open her plethora of gifts.  We are so lucky to have a daughter like Claire.  She is loving, responsible, silly, beautiful, fun, compassionate, creative, and we are so insanely proud of her.  We love you Clairey and hope you had a great 8th birthday party!