Slumber Party Fun

Carly turned {Double Digits} last week and for the 2nd year in a row she requested a slumber party.  I am not a huge fan on having unorganized chaos going on in my house so this is always a party that causes me to hyperventilate just a tad.

I designed this little invitation on Pic Monkey which was a step up from my last minute text message invitation for last years {Night Owl Party}.   I love using Pic Monkey but my only beef is I am never able to make the colors print the same as they show up on the screen.  I ended up sending this invite through an email this year.  As you can clearly see there was no real them this year but I decided to use her monogram with hopes we would find a craft for everyone centered around that.

I was excited this year Carly chose to request donations to a local charity, Books and a Blanket in lieu of gifts.  She had several sweet friends also bring a gift card so she will be able to actually go shop to pick out books and blankets to donate.  I’ve been impressed with how these two sisters have been able to do in such a short time!

I really wanted to make the party feel special so after brainstorming living on Pinterest for weeks I decided it would be fun to set up our pop up tent in the living room to create a little “glamping” fun.  Now, I can pull ideas together like nobody’s business but execution is sometimes where I fall short.  Carly even told her teacher “my mom has great ideas but we hardly ever do them”.  My heart would have melted into pieces had Jordan said this about me 15 years ago but these days I’m good with my shortcomings!  I took the day off work and headed out Friday morning to gather all the items on my list.

If any of you have ever set up a pop up tent then you can visually picture me doing this alone!  There may have been one…or all the cuss words used.  I finally succeeded, however, and knew it was going to really make the party.  I added string lights around the top and found a fun little turquoise chandelier for the center.  Initially I thought about using tulle but opted for plastic table cloths from the Dollar Tree to dress up the ceiling of the tent.

Oh, and did I mention I misplaced the battery charger for my good camera?  Forgive some of these pictures!

Carly’s 4th grade teacher texted me and asked if she could stop by at 8 for a “craft”.  I seriously thought she was just coming to have wine with me but she actually brought a legit craft!  How cool is that?!!  They girls made initial necklaces with her which definitely helped to kill some more time.

I set up a makeshift photo booth wall with lots of props and you can see the girls brought the silly.

I picked up a glow in the dark ring toss game at the Dollar Tree and they played for awhile in the dark hallway and then bonus the rings  made great bracelets.

The girls loved this set up and there was a lot of dancing and singing loudly (evidently Fight Song is THE song right now) and doing flips on the mattress.

Carly decided she wanted a sundae bar instead of cake this year.  For those of you who do not know, we barely survived the great Blue Bell shortage of 2015 and now that it is back in the stores it is all we can think about! I bought several different candies, nuts, cherries and of course their favorite canned whipped cream.  Seriously I think I could have just given them each a can of whipped cream and they would have been happy.

I decided to air pop the popcorn and bought some fun flavors to try.  This was another fail.  I have not air popped popcorn in forever and FYI if you don’t add a little butter the seasoning doesn’t stick at all. They were not impressed.

They watched TV and finally fell asleep around 1am.  This my friends is what you call a slumber party win!

Carly & her friends posing with the books & blankets they brought.

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I made banana chocolate chip muffins for breakfast and but also had cereal and pop tarts on hand

The girls departed around 10am with their goodies.  My amazing sister-in-law made vinyl monograms for each girl and added to a pillow case.  Super cute!

Slumber parties can be fun!  My advice is keep them a manageable size, plan a few activities and then sit back and have some wine and let the girls be girls!

Linking up with some of my favorites you can find here.