The Party

First of all, here's the case of bubble gum flavor oil:

I was surprised at how much of it I ended up using - almost half! We had that many girls come to our house.
Check out the clever invitations Emma designed! I was planning to buy papers and make something cute, but she came out of her room one day with a prototype for this and I decided it was high time I started letting her help me out in the party department.


It opens up to say "OMG!" So, I wrote on them "OMG! Emma's turning 10!"


I had a couple of party sponsors this time around, without whom the party would. not. have happened. I'm not even kidding. Even if I hadn't gone to bed at all, my tasks would have been unfinished. Denise is pictured here with some of the 30 kabillion balloons we blew up and filled with bubble gum. Denise rolled cake into little balls for cake pops. Denise laughed at my bad jokes. Denise was awesome.

Also, my sister (in law) Mindy showed up and stayed late. Here she is working a little bit of cake pop magic.



I would like to say that I shall never again attempt cake pops. There was a cake pop on the floor at one point, splatted into oblivion. At that point, it was nearly midnight. I had only gotten a couple hours' sleep the night before, due to an unfortunate English Paper Event. I would have thrown all the cake pop balls across the room and splatted them against the dark windows, cried a few bitter tears and gone to bed at that point. But Mindy had a stroke of genius and managed to piece together just enough cake pops for all the girls to have one.

I love messing around with all my glassware to see just how I want the table to look.


Party food:






We know a brilliant young artist who has a face painting business and we were so excited that she could make it for Emma's party. She was such a big hit! She had a line during the entire party and wound up painting nearly all the faces in just an hour and a half!


The story of rest of the party is probably best told by the photos I took (I was only able to actually take photos because I had such wonderful family and friends that helped us manage this party. Again, I am unendingly grateful to them).










A good time was had by all, or at least most. Best of all, my baby is ten years old and had a party to be proud of. This is probably the last big birthday party we will throw, so we really wanted it to be great. I have loved this part of being a mommy, but I'm pretty much just a mom now. Big kids have different needs and I am getting too old to stay up all night making stupid cake pops!
The biggest celebration, of course, was that Emma and I have both been alive for 10 extra years. I say it every year, but in case you haven't known me for long - Emma came into the world in fittingly dramatic fashion, nearly taking both of us out in the process. So, every year, I am reminded that I am so grateful to still be here and have the blessing of such an amazing little person to share life with. She has changed me and inspired me since coming along and I can't wait to see what this next year has in store for her.