Ashley's Birthday Bash

My sweet baby turned 9 years old yesterday. It's hard to believe it's been 9 years since we first met. 9 years since I held that precious baby in my arms for the first time. She was the beginning of this beautiful chapter of my life, that continues to flourish every day.

We had her birthday party at The Embassy Suites Hotel this weekend. I told her she could invite 5 friends, but somehow we ended up with 6. :) Here's the invitation I made:

As soon as we arrived at the Embassy, we got changed and jumped in the pool for a bit. Grandma wasn't scheduled to pick up Alex for a few hours, so we had 7 girls, and 3 year old Alex, who just learned to swim a few months ago. Whew, what was I thinking!? 9 year old girls are at the stage where they love their independance, yet still thrive on adult approval to some extent. This equates to 7 girls clear across the pool yelling "MRS. JAMIE, MRS. JAMIE, WATCH THIS, WATCH THIS!!", which would normally be fine if I didn't have a 3 year old who's swimming abilities out weigh his intelligence. The girls had a blast, momma came close to loosing her mind. Thankfully, our pizza arrived and we had an excuse to leave. After cake, pizza, and presents Grams and Pops took Alex home with them for the night THANKYOUVERYMUCH, and we headed off to the mall. I didn't tell the girls what we had planned, it was a complete surprise. We arrived at the food court and I handed each girl an envelope with their name written on the outside. Inside each person had a name tag:

a Scavenger Hunt Sheet. (I'll add that on to the end of this entry) Ashley's envelope had some money for a few of the items on the list, and a map of the mall. We decided that they should all stick together as opposed to splitting up in to teams because girls this age can be a little over competitive, and the last thing we needed was for them to be divided. That turned out to be an AWESOME decision. They worked so well together, no one was left out and everyone participated. It really turned out to be a great time for the girls. Mark and I tagged along behind them keeping our mouths shut as much as possible.
From there we went to Wendy's and ordered 9 Frosty's. What a time we had a Wendy's! Thankfully, the place was empty, had it not been, it would have been shortly after our arrival. Mark and I really let loose and let the girls have fun, which is not typical of us. Normally, we're the semi-uptight-stressed-to-the-max parents telling the kids to keep their voices down, mind their manners, and to wipe their chins, so for us, this was a pretty big deal. I have some great pictures from Wendy's, I'll post those later. Ok, so by now it's around 9:00 PM, so we head back to the hotel, where Mark proceeds to fall face first in to the pillow. Poor guy was beat! He played hard with the girls. At one point he had 4-5 girls hanging off him as he walked across the Wendy's parking lot. As Ruthie put it..he really shined that night. :) I was proud. Back to the room...the girls sat in a circle and did a craft where they decorated door knob hangars with foam letters and shapes, while pigging out on popcorn and yes, more junk. Oh man, those poor parents who actually sent toothbrushes, haha, I'm just crossing my fingers that I'm not the cause of any emergency dental work over the next week. We had cookies, gummy worms, chocolate, pop rocks, wax bottles, chewy sweet tarts and even more junk. It was heavenly.
After the sugar rushes peaked we did mud masks and nails. By the time we were done it was 11:30 and believe it or not the girls were ASKING to go to bed. NO, that's really no joke, they were ALL exhausted. We've found the secret to NOT staying up all night, WEAR THEM OUT and give them wayyyy too much sugar! We were in bed and sleeping by midnight. I never even saw the end of Saturday Night Live.

The next morning we did the free full made to order breakfast, where the girls pigged out on everything their little hearts desired...including soda...but shhh, don't tell. We ended the party by letting the girls run a muck in the hotel, they went from elavator to elevator, and floor to floor reaking havoc on the other hotel guests, which was fine by me, I wasn't with them. Muaaahaaahaa!!! We were packed up and on the road by 11:30, on the way back to sweet freedom. Ash had an awesome time, no fights, surprisingly everyone got along and made the best of it. I'm not sure if it was the closed quarters that forced them to get along, or the fact that I threatened their lives before we ever left the house. I told them that I would send anyone home that made fun of, left out, or caused trouble with any of the other girls. Poor Ash, I'm sure she LOVED hearing that speech. :) I will post pictures tomorrow, it's way late and I'm running on empty.

Ashley’s Birthday Scavenger Hunt

*Work together as a team to solve each clue to find out what items you need to complete this birthday mission. You may need to refer to a map of the mall to find your way. A $ next to the clue means you will need money, honey! You won’t have much, so shop wisely.

1. All young girls love to shop here and not just one or TOO of you. Go in this store and ask for a bag to carry your loot.

2. I am a plastic eating implement consisting of a small shallow bowl with a relatively long handle.

3. I am flat and round and you will find me where food is sold. You eat off of me and throw me away when I get old.

4. I am on all clothes when they are new, but discarded before worn.

5. I am born of a bud in the spring. In autumn, I turn brown and fall to the ground.

6. $ Shiny and round am I. 4 of me make a dollar.

7. I am made from paper and square, not round. When you are done with me, you flush me down.

8. $ I am chewed, but not swallowed. I am always sweet and sometimes hollow. You can find me in a machine.

9. $ You love me with milk when mom cooks me right. Bring me back without any bites. Make sure to get one of me for each person on your team!

10. You will find me at the bookstore waiting to hold your place. You slide me in your novels and I don’t take up much space. You can sometimes find me free if you ask, but in case you need to buy me, take some cash.