Mister & Miss Guided: Makenna

On October 25th (two days before her birthday) we celebrated Makenna's 7th birthday. We (I guess I should say "I") decided that it would be good to have a combined birthday party with another girl (Heather,) from church whose birthday is actually on October 25th. That way we could do something a bit bigger, and different from the past couple of years. Makenna's only request was that she have a piñata. So that being the case, the best place to have the party was at church.

Heather's mom, Amanda, had a great plan of making it like a girly girl type party with nail polish, hair coloring, dress-up stuff and then photos. Not to say that boys didn't end up coming to the party too. Amanda also wanted it to be a surprise for Heather but I did tell Makenna ahead of time. The downside was that Makenna was a bit miffed that she had to "share" her birthday and Heather, was certainly shocked by the surprise. So much so, that she sort of "left" the party after she heard surprise. It took a while but she came back in. I guess Amanda now knows that surprising Heather is not a good idea.

Since Heather has to have gluten free food, we decided that Amanda would make food for those who have gluten allergies and I would make/buy food for others who did not. We also decided instead of cake, we would do cupcakes and then the kids could decorate them anyway they want with different toppings to choose from. I made chocolate, pumpkin, vanilla, and chocolate-pumpkin cupcakes for people to choose from. They had 3 different colored frostings to choose from (pink, blue, and chocolate I think) and then sprinkles, M&M's, chocolate chips, Skittles, and other types of toppings.

Between the nail polish, pictures, cupcakes, and piñata, it was sort of like organized chaos to say the least. One of the funniest moments to me was when one of the boys said he wasn't getting his nails painted...that only girls did that sort of thing. Then about 10 minutes later, after seeing his brother do it, decided to paint every nail a different color.

I think all-in-all, it went fairly well and I've got some pictures and videos to show. Unfortunately the one video cuts out just as I'm about to open the piñata to mass chaos of kids. It was like you see on the nature channel when a bunch of lions take down an elephant and then some hyena's try to come in on the kill...there's some yelling, fighting, and inevitably someone ends up in tears...which was my child because she didn't get a whistle. Of all things! A $1 whistle from the dollar store sent her into tears! I could've bought at least $50 worth of whistles for the price of the other gifts she got. In fact, she just asked the other day about her next birthday and if she can get a whistle. Maybe I'll just buy her a whistle for her 8th birthday and no party......yeah right.

The black back-drop with colorful fringe hanging down is where the "stage" was for photos