Happy Birthday, Jenna!

Big party here over the weekend. It’s not every day your little girl turns 11, after all. She wanted a “late night” movie party, so we decided to go with a pajamas and popcorn themed party.

Aren’t those cupcakes SO cute? Love them.

All of her friends came in their pajamas (well, I guess only 10 of them came), and they played a game while I got dinner ready. I had suggested that we have pancakes instead of the traditional pizza, and I think it was a big hit (and cheap, by the way).

I just put out a bunch of toppings, syrups, whipped cream, and fruit, and then kept the pancakes coming. Man, can those girls eat. I couldn’t believe how many pancakes they were putting down. And loud! You get a bunch of normally mild mannered, sweet girls together in a room, and they are transformed into a gaggle of giggling girls.

When they were sufficiently stuffed and the table was similarly syrupy, they adjourned to the family room to pick a movie while Megan and I cleaned up.

We had to pop the popcorn, but didn’t want to be all loud with the air popper, so I just brought out a few microwave popcorn bags.

I kid you not, as soon as those girls smelled popcorn, they wanted some. Seriously? How can you even think about eating another morsel? Oh well, there’s always room for popcorn. They were eating it as fast as we got it popped, and we went through quite a bit of popcorn. Of course, a lot of it ended up on the floor, I’m sure.

They had decided to watch Soul Surfer, and after the girl lost her arm to the shark, all of the girls were going around with only one arm. I looked at them and thought, now that’s weird, why would she have her arm in her sleeve? And she’s doing it too.
Even John was one armed!

Jenna even opened her presents with one arm! They were taking this one armed thing pretty far!

What a hoot!

Thankfully, their arms did grow back for the eating of the cupcakes.

I had actually planned on ice cream with the cupcakes, but by then I couldn’t believe they were still eating anything at all, and the dishwasher was already full and I didn’t want to dirty more dishes (lame Mom excuse, I know, but it’s the truth). I don’t think anyone noticed the lack of ice cream.

Then they went back to watching their movie, and then playing with the new presents and anything else that looked like fun.

At about 9:30, I thought, Why, oh WHY did I let her put 6:00-10:00 on the invitations? But the time passed pretty quickly, and soon I was saying goodbye to girls and sweeping up popcorn and marshmallows and telling my kids to go to bed.

Not the most elaborate or fancy party, but quite a FUN party for one sweet little girl.
Happy Birthday, Jenna! I hope every birthday is as much fun as this one was, and I hope you always have this many fun friends.