Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Anatomy of a 13th Birthday Party

Live-In #1 turned 13 this week.  For her 13th birthday she wanted to have a big birthday party with friends from different areas of her life in attendance.  She invited 24 girls and 18 came - for a total of 19 girls, two brothers and a toddling niece!!

I had been planning this party in the back of my head for months.  I wanted to have games to keep the girls busy, but they couldn't be the games we played when she was younger.  I needed to up the ante...so here's what I did...

VENUE
Since her invite list was large and some of my game ideas were messy, I decided to have her party at a local school gym with a nearby outdoor covered area.  - Check!

CAKE
I usually make and decorate a cake for my live-ins birthdays, however when I suggested a chocolate fountain to Live-In #1 she became hysterical...  Chocolate Fountain it is! - Check!!
Goodies for the chocolate fountain included: pretzels, strawberries, potato chips, large marshmallows, chocolate chips cookies and rice krispy treats.  Let me tell you, this was a HIT!

FOOD
I went back and forth on whether or not to have food.  Finally I decided to have pizzas delivered during the party.  Pizza Hut has $5 mediums - not bad.  Live-In #1 wanted sodas so we had Orange, Dr Pepper & Root Beer. - Check!

GAMES
This is where I had a lot of fun in the planning.  We played six games, but I had seven ready to go - we just ran out of time.

Balloon Popping - the first game I used as kind of an ice breaker.  When each girl arrived I gave them two balloons.  I instructed them to blow up the balloons and tie them around each ankle.  The object of the game is to try to step on other peoples balloons to pop them...the last girl with at least one inflated balloon wins.  We did this to music...Ozzy Osbourn (Lovers choice) and Nickelback!

Shower Cap, Shaving Cream & Cheese Puffs - yes you read that correctly.  I purchased cheap shower caps, shaving cream and cheese puffs at the $ store.  I had each girl put on a shower cap, then each girl got a liberal dose of shaving cream added to their shower cap.  Finally they were paired up in groups of two with a bowl of cheese puffs.  They stood about six feet apart and threw cheese puffs at each other, trying to catch the cheese puff in the shaving cream.  There was a lot of laughter and silliness with this game.
Shower Caps Ready

Shaving Cream Ready

Cheese Puffs Flying!

Frozen T-Shirts - The night before the party I washed several t-shirts, folded them up while they were wet and put them in my freezer to freeze.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the circumstances) my washer spins so fast it gets most of the water out of the t-shirts so they did not freeze as well as I would have liked.  BUT I did not let this stop me from enjoying the 'oh it's so cold' comments I got from many of the girls.  The object of this game is to see who can get the t-shirt to thaw out enough to get it on... (no pictures...Lover was cleaning up the cheese puffs!)

Water Balloon Toss - straight up classic game...lots of laughter and fun here too
Ready....Set....

Get Wet!

Prop/Skit - I split the girls into three groups and gave them a prop (mop, hair spray & joint pill bottle).  I gave them five minutes to come up with a skit they would preform using the prop, then gave each group 2 minutes to perform their skit.  At the end everyone voted on which group was best...and everyone got a prize.

Auction - I had purchased several items for an auction.  Most items were from the $ store so most everything was $1, however I had a few $2-$4 items.  Each girl was given $20 in play money and we started the auction.  I think just about everyone walked away with a prize or two.  We had some items that were 'gags'  and we had some 'mystery' items.  The girls seemed to have a lot of fun with this.
These girls were fierce auctioneers!

I normally plan 1 1/2 hours for a party, however for this party I planned 2 hours and ended up needing 2 1/2 hours. The girls were kept busy and seemed to have a great time.  Live-In #1 could not pick a favorite game, she said she loved them all.  The Chocolate Fountain was a HUGE hit and I SURVIVED to tell the story.  So all in all, it would rate it a success!


1 comment:

  1. Oh - I'm so glad it went well! You are an inspiration:) P.s. the shower cap game looks hilarious!

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