Marissa's Birthday Weekend Extraganza (The Longest Weekend EVER!)

This weekend we celebrated Marissa's 11th birthday in style.

Her birthday morning, she woke up to her bedroom doorway papered in streamers.  I didn't plan this ahead of time but when the Birthday Girl woke up she said she wasn't surprised. WHAT?!?!?! She had seen the streamers in the kitchen while I was decorating.  Go figure, since when I pulled the streamers out I didn't know what I was doing with them.  She's a tough sell, is all I'm saying.

 

After school, I brought her to Party City to pick out a balloon for her party.  I had planned on surprising her with a balloon, but I didn't swing it time-wise.  Good thing too, since the balloon I would've picked out was declared "too baby-ish" for her.  **sigh** She's flipped the switch already & grown up.

That night after her choice of dinner at TGIFriday's, we had her open her presents from us.

She's really big on the Hunger Games series of books, so when I found a bunch of Hunger Games goodies to give her, she was thrilled!

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The next day was her friend party.  She invited 8 girls for Mani/Pedi's PLUS a sleepover.  How I allowed her to invite that many kids to sleepover is beyond me.  There were TEN, LOUD girls all together!!

Here she is with my niece Nikki & Gianna after picking out their nail colors.

Birthday girl was the first to get her pedicure.  The salon I go to made sure to make her feel special & gave her a bouquet of balloons (see the streamers?)

A group of the girls drying their nails...

The whole gang of girls sang "Happy Birthday" to Marissa (at the top of their lungs).  Luckily we had the salon to ourselves, but regardless I'm sure all the nail technicians were happy we left soon after! ;)

Back at home the kids went outside while I set up snacks until the pizza came.  I also set up a candy bar for the girls...no I don't think I was in my right mind when I had this idea.  However, I was told by a few of the girls that I was "the BEST MOM EVER!"....I made them repeat that to make sure Marissa heard them. ;)

Then of course there was CAKE!! 

The cake was SIX layers of awesomeness.  Everyone loved it.

Especially my favorite 11 year old.

Presents were opened & oohed over.  She was happy.

Shortly afterwards, the girls changed into PJ's & jumped around like monkeys from all the sugar they ingested watched movies.

 While they were all doing their thing I hung out in the den, attempting to work on my Project Life album.  I served leftover pizza around midnight & waited for them to fall asleep.  Finally around 2am things got quieter & I felt comfortable enough leaving them for the night.

The next morning Joe, (who didn't sleep the night before due to painting my scraproom trim & doors all night long, but thankfully managed to sleep through all the chaos) made the girls pancakes & bacon.  He took care of it all, knowing I was up late the night before.  All I'm saying is, those girls are like vultures when it comes to bacon....

When they were full, I made them get dressed & they all went outside.  There were a few that were feeling the after effect of the long night, but overall it wasn't too bad. 

 They all got picked up around 11am & then I had to get ready for round Two, or is it Three? We were having family over next. 

Yep another cake, but this time we kept it simple with Marissa's favorite Coconut cake.  The amount of cake in our house was crazy! 

Marissa had a fun, crazy, birthday weekend.  I don't think she'll ever forget it.  My mission was accomplished!