Maddy turns 9

So, it's been quite some time since I've blogged on this thing. I'm learning it all over again which is fun but a bit annoying. But fun. Fun? Yeah...fun.  I just wanted to post about the kids birthday parties we got done celebrating and Facebook won't let me write as much as I want to about it. So, hello again! Nice to see you. Let's get started.

Chris and I gave Maddy a choice of having a big birthday party but a small gift, or a small party and a big gift. She thought about it for a whopping 2 seconds before she decided on big gift, small party. So ok, I thought 'lets do a little dance/karaoke party with a few friends from school'.  Then Pinterest happened and it really snowballed from there. I spent an hour every night thoroughly searching the Internet for any and all cute, crafty, DIY 'Rock Star' party ideas. I even enlisted my sister in law as second in command in putting her Etsy skills to task. I made 2 trips to Hobby Lobby, 3 to Zurchers, and 10 to Amazon. Well, it all paid off and then some. The small party turned out to be not so small but that's ok because it was SO FUN to do. Here's everything that I did:

First of all, I had Chris help me make these awesome birthday invitations look like concert tickets. And then made VIP backstage passes that were laminated and put on lanyards for the girls to wear to the party. It basically was my creative way of telling everyone to come dressed up in their Rockstar attire.

This is the awesomeness that Chris created on the ceiling in our living room above the dance floor. We thought it was so cool looking that we left it up for a whole week after the party. It's just crepe papers streamers and a groovy disco ball.

This is a 'Punch Box'. It's my new favorite version of a piñata. I covered an old box we had laying around with black plastic table cloth. I then cut out 12 circles on the face of the box. On the inside of the box I taped tissue paper over the holes. Then I filled 12 paper bags with goodies for all of the kids. I taped the opening of the filled bags to the tissue paper that was covering the holes. Then I added a few embellishments to the outside of the box to make it look super cute. The girls took turns punching their hands though the tissue paper to retrieve the gifts that were inside. I put a pair of star sunglasses and a little toy in each one.

I set up a 'Tattoo Parlor' for the girls, with rock star temporary tattoos.

Each girl got their own blow up guitar that they needed to 'tune'.

I put some silver foil curtains around my entertainment center and set up Maddy's music light stand. It flashes lights on the floor and ceiling along with the music that it detects is playing.

Simple table setting. You can't see it, but I put mini disco balls in my tissue paper flowers and it looked really cute. Then I hung some stars and disco ball garland from my chandelier. Oh, and I used my star shaped hole puncher to make some confetti to sprinkle around the table.

I set up a dressing room in the bathroom where the girls got to put make-up on and colored extensions in their hair. They all took turns putting layers and layers of make-up on Maddy. She loved having all that attention from her friends.

The last thing I did was buy a whole bunch of hot pink shirts for the girls and gave them silver fabric pens to 'autograph' each others shirts. Then we set up a red carpet and had my dad, Chris' dad, brother-in-law Mike, and Christopher use their cameras to act as 'paparazzi' while each girl got to take a turn walking down the red carpet and have their photo taken.

The food table was really fun to do. I tried to get creative with naming the different types of food to go along with the Rockstar theme.

Of course I had to get Pop Rocks, then Rockin' Rolls (Swiss rolls), Drum sticks (chocolate covered pretzel sticks), Disco cakes (Maddy's one food request was cornbread so I made cornbread cupcakes with mini disco balls on top, and then pink chocolate covered cake pops with silver ball sprinkles), then Rock Sticks (rock sugar suckers), and Popstar Corn (popcorn). Oh and pink and silver sixlets as vase filler.

The rest of the party was just singing on Maddy's new karaoke machine, dancing around, and various other girly shenanigans. Maddy had a wonderful time as did all of her friends. She received some wonderful gifts and made some great memories. Oh and she loved her big gift from Chris and I, which was an iPod touch 5 in pink. My sweet 9 year old has a lot of love in her life!!

She's going to kill me one day for posting this picture...