Maddie's birthday party was one of the best ones we've had! We made it a complete surprise, and you could see it on her face! Here's the story:
I had a friend mention the surprise birthday party idea a few months before Maddie's birthday. I hadn't yet decided what to do for her birthday, but I knew I wanted to do something big because she was turning 10. Once I heard it I knew that was what I wanted to do, but the tricky part would be inviting people. I knew some of the friends that she would want to be there, but as for her friends in her class at school I had no idea. About a month before the party I started casually asking her about her friends at school. Things like, who are your friends, do they live in this neighborhood, and what are their last names. It was hard to be sneaky about it, but I think that by spacing out the questions it was less obvious. After I got enough information on the kids I would try to google their last name to try to find out where they lived. That only worked once since most of them had last names like Smith. Very disappointing! I was able to give out a couple at an awards ceremony for their class, and that helped, but the rest were hard. For one girl, I knew the neighborhood she lived in and what car they had, so I actually drove around the neighborhood until I found out where they lived. ( I know- a little on the border of being a stalker!) Eventually I gave the rest to a friend who works at the school and she passed them on for me:)! I was just glad to have been able to do it without Maddie finding out. One of the best parts was that Maddie's teacher was great about it and helped by telling all the girls that it was a surprise birthday party and that they weren't suppose to talk about it to Maddie or in front of her. It was so perfect! I thought for sure that their would be someone to tell Maddie, but no one did! I made sure to not tell Katie or Cole for fear that they would let it slip. I asked Katie (as we were decorating for the party) if she knew, and she said she didn't know. Katie said that one night one of their friends came over and started talking about a party, but they all thought she was talking about a party for their American girl dolls:)!
So, on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Kenny told Maddie he would take her out to go Christmas shopping. She was excited and they left on their way. He took her shoe shopping:)! I honestly love how Kenny will play along with all my crazy ideas! Well, while they were out shopping Katie, Cole, and myself started getting the house ready for the party! Luckily all the girls showed up early just like I had asked and we got everything ready. Maddie has wanted to have a Movie Party for the last few years with some special decorations from Oriental Trading Company, so I had ordered all of the decorations to go with and planned a movie to watch and everything. Kenny called me and let me know that they were pulling onto our street, and we turned the lights off, hid behind the furniture, and yelled surprise as she walked through the door! The look on her face was priceless! She was completely shocked! It was great! The girls had so much fun talking and playing and watching the movie! They had pizza and I had bought all the movie theater sized candy as well as pop and popcorn! A few of the girls were able to stay the night for the sleepover, and I'm pretty sure they stayed up later than I have in a long time:)!
