We got her good!
Jasmine’s birthday is December 8. It’s a rough time of year to have a birthday — everyone’s calendars, including Mom and Dad’s, are filling up fast so it’s next to impossible to plan a party. Often we postpone her party until Christmas vacation, the week between Christmas and New Year’s, since her public-school friends have the week off. This year, December 8th landed on a Friday — the one Friday that all the ladies in the Women’s Ministry group at church could go caroling at a local nursing home. And since I’m the songleader for the group, I had to go. We told Jasmine that we couldn’t have her party that night, and since Daddy’s company party was the next night we couldn’t do the party that day. So, maybe we’d do a Chuck E. Cheese party on the following Saturday, the 16th. She was cool with that, and since she’d never had a Chuck E. Cheese party, was not upset about the delay at all.
Which made us really hope that she wouldn’t hate us all when she found out that it was all a hoax! While she was telling all her friends that she was having a Chuck E Cheese party on the 16th, I was quietly telling their mothers that she was really having a surprise slumber party the 8th, but that it wouldn’t start til 8. Pink Pixie blew the surprise once, but after yelling at her (yeah, I do that sometimes) for spoiling it, I took her aside shortly after and explained that now Jasmine would never suspect, because she thinks the surprise is blown. Pink Pixie did great the remainder of the 2 weeks she had to keep the secret, and even did a bit of acting, pretending to be mad that I wouldn’t let her do a dance at the nursing home so she could stay home to yell SURPRISE with the other girls!
And surprised she was!!! I forgot to let Squid know where my camera was, so we didn’t get a picture of the shock, but she was totally speechless! She gaped and gasped, looking and realizing her friends were there, and it was a party. Then when she found out it was a slumber party, that made it all even better! She kept saying over and over “This is the best birthday EVER!!!” Nope, she wasn’t mad at all that there wouldn’t be a Chuck E Cheese party.
We were on quite a budget. I had planned to make a cake from scratch, but after cleaning house all morning and most of the afternoon, figured I’d just go get a cake mix. I got that, frosting, snacks, pop, AND her gift — a Doodle Bear — at the Family Dollar store all for under $25! I was pretty proud of myself. There have been years that I’ve spent nearly $200 and she didn’t have half as much fun!
So, here’s some pictures of the Dollar Store birthday:
Why are all my pictures running off the left side of the page?! I love the customization of this template, I’d hate to have to change it!
December 17th, 2006 at 11:41 pmThey might be set (in the template) to line up on the right side of the column. Since they are wider than the column, they are hanging over the side. Smaller pictures might work better.
December 18th, 2006 at 8:14 amLooks like one excited 8 year old. Apparently the Mexican earrings were a hit. Tell Pink Pixie I’m proud of her keeping the secret. Good job, Mom!
December 18th, 2006 at 9:22 amOK, another dumb question — what is the easiest way to get the pictures smaller? I think HSJ used to automatically reduce the size, but the way pictures upload has changed a little, so maybe that doesn’t happen anymore.
December 18th, 2006 at 9:34 amyeah, when I updated some things I forgot to paste back in the changes I made. You can still somewhat resize the pics by just having them *display* smaller.
In the HTML section of the post editor, change the width and height on the IMG tags.
It’s probably the stylesheet forcing the images to line up over there so it doesn’t over-run the sidebar.
December 18th, 2006 at 1:14 pmAwesome pictures!
December 18th, 2006 at 6:12 pmThe top picture will not load for me at all. Otherwise great party, she was excited. J on the other hand now thinks that girls are WAY too noisey.
December 20th, 2006 at 8:59 amI cant see the first picture but the rest are precious. I love the suprised look on her face!
December 28th, 2006 at 11:08 am