Sarah suffers from the same fate as I. Her birthday is in the middle of summer vacation, making it difficult to have a party with all your friends, because they are all on vacation. Our solution is to celebrate with friends a bit earlier, preferably before school gets out. Since this is a special birthday, we decided to let her do something special to celebrate it. She got to have her very first slumber party. I told her that some of the kids might not want to spend the night, and some may not be allowed to spend the night, but we would invite them all and see who could come. We planned it for the last day of school, which worked out well, since only 3 girls would already be gone on vacation then. And happily, 3 of the remaining 5 girls could spend the night. She was very happy with that outcome, and so was I.
We had the girls arrive just before dinner time, and then we let them make individual pizzas in our raclette grill. They loved choosing their own toppings, and the pizzas are so small they bake rather quickly. Afterward, my friend Jenna came and helped the girls make their very own bracelets. The girls loved it, and the bracelets ended up being a much better treat to take home than a plastic bag full of sugar in various forms.
We opened presents and then the girls all got ready for bed, and we popped in a movie, "Night at the Museum" in German, of course. Chris suggested we put them to bed at around 8:00. I laughed for a while, and when I had finally caught my breath, I explained to him that there was no sense in putting the kids to bed until at least 10, because they were going to stay up late talking and giggling anyway. We compromised and at 9:15 we shut off the movie and sent them to bed.
As predicted, I believe they all finally fell asleep between 10 and 10:30. I know this because I went in at 10 and told them in my best mean mommy voice to settle down and go to sleep! At 10:30, I needed to get a fresh onesie for Alexandra and they were all sound asleep. 🙂
The next morning, we had a nice big breakfast and then we let them finish watching the movie. After that, they played for a few minutes and then it was time to go home. I am so glad that Sarah has such a wonderful group of girls to be with in school. They were all so polite, so nice to each other, and just lots of fun. I am so happy she was able to have such a memorable, fun party.
