KBug's Night Owl Birthday Sleepover [Pictures]

Ok, let me break it down for you.

• It's been almost a full week since KBug's birthday party and I haven't written a post about it yet.
• I've spent the past several hours working on a Marketing paper.
• KBug will be home from school in just a few short hours.

Basically, I'm going to take this opportunity to write a blog post because, well, it's likely the only opportunity I will get for the next few days. Our lives have gotten so chaotic now that we are headed on towards summer and I love it! But it is leaving little time for things like my own schoolwork which completely puts blogging on the back burner. I'm going to do my best to keep it all up, though, even with extra time outside, yard work, more play dates and what seems like continuous baking for a couple of guys who now have no problems what-so-ever with my love of Pinterest because that's where I am getting all of my recipes.

 

But anyways. So KBug had her birthday party last Friday night. And we had an absolutely fantastic time! Throughout the month of April, I wrote a couple of times about KBug's impending seventh birthday and the night owl birthday sleepover extravaganza she so desperately wanted. I used this blog to organize my, of course, Pinterest inspired ideas at one point, which you can read about here. You can also check out my Birthday Ideas board and my KBug's 7th Birthday- Owls board on Pinterest to see all of the ideas I have pinned. Amazingly enough, I actually managed to implement a few of the ideas I found and they turned out wonderfully! I was so excited!

 

So I spent the entire day before the party cleaning my house. This required blasting music from my computer and dancing around the house while I made progress, but that's ok. It all worked out and the house ended up clean so we're good.

 

The day of the party I had to work. So I spent my time before work blowing up balloons, hanging decorations and covering tables. It went a LOT quicker than I had anticipated and I actually managed to get a LOT done before I had to shower and get ready for work. It was pretty awesome. And I was so excited to have so much done because I knew I wasn't going to have much time between work and the start of the party. I'm the type of person who starts panicking before big events and this, in my mind, was a big event. We've never done a sleepover with more than two girls so it was a big deal in our home to have six girls spend the night! The picture below was taken before I finished decorating completely. I actually added another flower balloon and an Owl canvas print to the wall.
 

 

School is out, I race home and get to work. There's food to prepare, decorations to finish and KBug to keep entertained. Cue awesome friends who came early to help me out. Amazingly enough I ended up getting everything finished in plenty of time and even remembered to put the balloons out on the mailbox. I told everyone I would be sure to do that because my house can be kind of difficult to find. It's not always in everyone's GPS and, sure enough, we had a couple of people who got lost. But, in the end, everyone who was supposed to be here made it. That's what counts!

 

The first thing the girls did was put together a little owl ornament craft I had picked up at Michael's. I was rushing around, answering the door, putting food on the table for dinner and making sure everyone had blankets and pillows and clothes that I completely forgot to take pictures of this, but I think it's okay. I did feel really smart, though, and made up little cards for parents to fill out listing any allergies or medications they needed and getting parents names and phone numbers just in case! I think that makes up for not taking pictures in the first fifteen minutes, right???

Well, I also forgot to take pictures while they were eating dinner... Oops... For dinner I tried to keep it simple. Each girl got a cup of carrots and celery and got to choose if they wanted ranch or not to dip them in. Each girl got two slices of bread and their choice of making a PB&J or a ham/salami & cheese sandwich. They loved being able to do it all on their own! And we also had sugar cookies with fruit dip and fruit to make a "fruit pizza". Everything went over really well and they ate way more than I had expected. I guess that's because it's like pulling teeth to get my KBug to eat more than three bites, maybe?
 

After they finished eating I sent them outside. Again, cue awesome friends who came to help me out because I was still working on setting dinner out. So my friends followed them outside and a couple of them got out there and played with all the girls! It was adorable to watch them chase these guys around the backyard! And the girls loved it when they big guys let them "win".

Mr. Boston being attacked by the girls because he was keeping the ball from them

Mr. J being attacked by the girls because he had captured KBug!

After playing outside for a while, the girls all came inside for presents and cake. KBug had a great time opening her presents, as any seven-year-old would, and one of my friends was kind enough to take pictures for me while I assisted KBug!

The face is because these are chapter books and while she is fully capable of reading them...
She doubts her ability and refuses... Yay...

Super excited for her new puppy that sings a lullaby!

This is my "teacher face" to match my "teacher voice"
I reminded them that, just like at school, when someone is reading we are quiet, still and respectful.
Best part? They all listened!

A new baby doll!
She was so happy!

More new books! And they're about animals.
Perfect!

And here's a few pictures of KBug's fabulous birthday cake, made by a very good friend of mine, and the blowing out of candles and such.

She was ready for us to sing so she could eat!

Blowing out all of her candles!

Then came out night walk to listen for owls. We just walked up and down the street to try and get some of the sugar out of their systems. I tried to tell them that if they were quiet they were more likely to hear the animals around them, but after the seventh or eighth time I gave up and just let them be chatty little girls because that's what they wanted. They all loved their Glow Sticks and Glow Bracelets, though!

Out on our night walk, having a wonderful time!

What came next? Pajamas, popcorn, The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole and lights out! Our first girl fell asleep around 10:15, and she was out! The last child to fall asleep finally crashed out at midnight. Any guesses as to who that child was? Yeah, it was mine. Thanks KBug.

All lined up on the couch waiting to put pajamas on!

Everyone is sprawled out across the air mattresses to watch the movie!

Two queen sized mattresses and a twin and still children on the couch!

The morning began bright and early the next day. And I'm talking 6:15am early. Again, thank you KBug. Here's a few pictures from their morning fun and pancake breakfast!

Love my KBug!

Playing with a Rubik's Cube of all things!

And then I had another craft activity for them. The night before, while they were watching the movie, I had sat down with scrapbook paper of different designs and pattern pieces from an owl. I told myself I would trace the pieces until all the girls were asleep. Well, I traced and cut out 32 owl pieces before the last child, my child, was asleep. My hand hurt so badly from the scissors. But here's the project!

 

If you would like to see how all of the Owl Canvases turned out, there are individual pictures of each of them on my Facebook page! Some of the girls chose to use feathers, some chose stickers and some opted to use both! They turned out really cute, in my completely biased opinion.

The best part of KBug's birthday party for me, though, was watching he re-unite with a friend, "Maggs", she hasn't been able to see in 8 months. KBug's best friend since halfway through her second year of preschool and all the way through Kindergarten didn't come back to our school this year. And with our lives being so busy, and her family's life being so busy, it has been so hard to connect and make plans for the girls to get together and play. But when we started making a list of friends for her birthday, this little girl was the first one on her list. As soon as KBug saw the car pull up, she tore out of the house and just launched herself at Maggs. She was so incredibly happy to see her. And then all through the party they had to sit next to one another and they did everything together. It was so wonderful to see such a connection between them after such a long time. It reminded me a lot of my best friend and me (you can read about our friendship here).

KBug and Maggs
"Best Friends For Life"

And that's all I have for you on KBug's Night Owl Birthday Sleepover! Honestly, if you read all of this, I commend you. It is a LONG post and FULL of pictures. Heck, it's possible that it took a year for it to load onto your screen, I suppose. But I just had to share how much fun we had with this party!

Now it's time to prepare to do it all over again next year..... I swear I'm still recovering from the experience!