Over a year ago (and exactly one week BEFORE her 6th birthday), Ripley told me that she wanted a St. Patrick's themed slumber party for her 7th birthday. Yes, she is a planner. Works well for her mama, the ultimate planner, who started collecting St. Paddy's stuff 12 months ago.
Ripley was allowed to invite 6 friends for the event -- 4 were able to come. What's in the bag? you ask. Well, I searched high and low for shamrock pjs but alas could not find any and ended up making them using Target pj pants, Target white Ts, and some leftover pink patterned fabric.
I used an extra pair of PJ pants to make the shamrocks for the shirts, and leftover pink patterned fabric for the little shamrocks on the pants.
I think it went over well with the girlies, as I heard from one mom that her daughter wanted to wear them all weekend. So did Rip. She doesn't like when they have to go through the wash, because that's one day she can't wear them.
OH, did I mention that there was a 6th little leprechaun at the event? Her name is Tuli.
This is what happens when Target Ts only cost $4. You have no reason NOT to dress your dog, right? She was a really good sport about it. She especially liked the part of the evening where the girls did the Irish jig.
Everyone was VERY enthusiastic about the Irish music and dancing. They also liked the drink stickers with their names
("O'Ripley", "O'Liza", "McLauren", "O'Caroline", "O'Ava") and initiated a CHEERS! on their own.
I kept dinner very simple - fruit, carrots, PB&Js shaped liked shamrocks (the girls seemed to really like those, and James and I ate all of the scraps that were cut away from the shamrock cookie cutter:).
The big Ta-Dah! was the cupcake assortment with homemade buttercream frosting -- OH YAH. I mean, if you're going to have a cupcake, you might as well do it right. And you might as well make as many shades of green frosting as you can.
Don't start calling me Martha just yet. The cupcakes were just a vanilla box mix, but I did add the "surprise" ingredient, as R likes to call it -- chocolate chips. Again, if you're going to bother having a cupcake...
On to the activities...Rip and I decided that making charm necklaces would be a fun craft. I also printed out a bunch of St. Paddy's themed coloring sheets and a word search, and honestly I think they liked those more than the necklace craft. But they all wore their necklaces (on which they each wrote BFF on the back) all night.
More Irish jigging. They really got into it.
The big event for the night was the hunt for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
No, it's not really on fire. Just looks cauldron-like in this pic. That is Rip on the left jumping around and yelling "I found it! It's SO cool!"
That's a better representation of what it actually looked like. I taped streamers to the ceiling to make the "rainbow" and blew up 30 yellow balloons for the "gold", then put an illuminated Happy St. Pat's sign in the "pot" surrounded by the balloons.
The "hunt" consisted of colored ribbons that the girls had to follow throughout the house to find the pot of gold (in the basement). Each girlie had her own color of ribbon to follow. It was mass chaos and I loved it. This was a thing my mom used to do for my slumber parties when I was a girl, and I have been DYING to do it for Ripley.
Funniest part of the hunt: R's little friend Caroline getting completely tangled in everyone's ribbons while on the stairs, and James cutting her out of the ribbons.
MY personal favorite part: When R started yelling about the pot of gold, the rainbow, etc. and declaring it all "SO COOL!". Yes, very cool for Mama. She also wanted to collect all of the "gold" (balloons) before the leprechaun came back for it. Funny.
So, you might be wondering what the ribbons were attached to at the end of the rainbow?
Big balls of STUFF. Yes, each girlie's ribbon was attached to crepe paper ball o'stuff. Again what my dear mom used to do for my slumber parties -- all kinds of fun little goodies that would fall out as you unravelled the ball. Stickers, shamrocks, necklaces, coins.
(Thanks Mom for doing this for us all those years, and for letting me steal the idea!)
I love this look on R's face as she's staring at the rainbow. And Tuli's expression as she tries to figure out what in the world is going on with all these streamers.
After the unravelling, it was time to destroy the rainbow.
It certainly took less time for it to come down than it did to put up.
After a viewing of "Shaun the Sheep: Little Sheep of Horrors", the girls went "to bed". Did they sleep? Yes, eventually.
In the morning, I totally took the lazy way out and sent James to get Krispy Kremes. Good decision on my part. The girls played, had a dance party (they are big fans of the Black Eyed Peas "I Got A Feelin'), and tried to recreate the rainbow/pot of gold with the leftover streamers and balloons. Ava even asked me, "Mrs. Coope, can you set up the pot of gold in the basement again?" My answer, "NO." My actual answer, which I whispered to James, "HELL NO."
Girlies were gone by 10, and even though we were all exhausted, we got the house tidied up, took the training wheels off of Rip's bike (seriously! finally! hooray!), I caught a quick nap, and James and I headed out for a much anticipated date night to see Craig Ferguson do stand-up. Fabulous.
Favorite moments from the weekend:
Watching the girlies dance and belt out "I Got a Feelin' while James and I drank coffee and checked email from our laptops. Loud moment but blessedly peaceful at the same time. Can't explain it.
Laughing my a** off at Craig Ferguson's show. Haven't laughed that hard in a long long time. Loved that the 3 groups of people he feels comfortable making fun of are Nazis, Canadians, and people who like disco. My sweet husband falls into one of those categories. Wonder if you can guess which one.
Hearing Ripley say, "Mama, this is the BEST BIRTHDAY PARTY EVER!"
Oh yes, a great weekend indeed.
Happy birthday, my not-so-little 7-year-old.