Merry Christmas!

It seems like it was only a couple of weeks ago that we were celebrating Halloween. Our party with donuts and jammies in the morning was really fun!

The girls took a good look at my tree and picked their favorite ornament. The yellow puppy won with the purple star coming in second.

We gathered at the craft table to eat our donuts first. I figured that would have been pretty mean of me to make them wait. As you can see, they were delicious.
Puffy Cream over on Yankee Doodle by the gas station and scuba place has the best donuts in town!

Next, they chose one of two different ornaments to make. The angel won hands down.

Because this is a season of giving they drew names out of a hat and kept it a secret.

Then they went around the table and said what their favorite colors were.




We talked about when you are giving a gift you don't pick it out or make it based on what you like but on what you friend likes.

They turned out cute. Isabel always
spends some extra time on hers as you can see from the detail in these
ornaments she made for Ella.









It was off to the living room for some dancing and posing like the fox from What Does the Fox Say. I'll be happy when that song stops getting so much air time!

Time to watch a short video of The Christmas Story with little kids from New Zealand playing the parts and narrating. It is really sweet and I always here "aaawwwhhh" when they show the baby.



Next was a memory game.

I took 14 miscellaneous items out of a bag
one by one and they were supposed to carefully
observe and then I put them all back.


After a few more minutes of talking and
laughing they teamed up with a friend and tried to remember all of the items.

Aspen and Peyton came up with the most at eight.
The others remembered around six or seven.










Time to pass out some little gifts. Greta brought gift bags for everyone and I had made some ornaments for each of them with a clear ball, some chopped up crayons and a hair dryer.

It was easy and fun and they are all unique. Of course pink is the favorite color and there were a couple of blue/greens in there for Mia and Genevieve.

Last but not least we had a game of pictionary with a Christmas/winter theme.

I think I made them a little easy because with only two lines on the paper someone would yell out "grinch" or "elf" and they would be right!

Still fun to seem them really try and get competitive.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and survives the two week break with no school!

See you in 2014...

Happy Halloween!

What do you need to have a fun Halloween party with a group of
young girls?

Costumes, pizza, cupcake decorating, crafts, a ghost hunt,
dancing and some screaming!

There were some great costumes which included two clowns, two leopards, a zombie prom queen, two gymnasts (one with witch hat), frankenstein girl, 80's rocker girl, Hello Kitty, a vampire, a witch and a bunny (who lost a tooth before the party was over)!

This year I skipped all of the "scary" stuff that I tried last year which didn't go over too well.
Although the basement was still decorated with some skulls and spiders and a random rat.

I even changed it up and went as a white glittery fairy rather than my usual head to toe black witch or spider queen which went well with Peyton the princess.

We started with our craft which was a glittery spider web.



Some girls opted to do their own design but I believe that glitter made it on to every paper.

They were going to pick a teacher or family member or friend to give their work of art to.

Zombie crafting…so funny!

We headed downstairs to eat some pizza. After so many parties of cheese only requests I actually ran out of pepperoni. I'll make a note for next time!

Back upstairs to decorate cupcakes.

I'm always amazed at how creative these girls can be with some colored frosting and sprinkles.

The creepy crawler gummies were a nice touch this year.

After numbering the cupcakes and having each girl go through the line, they told Peyton what their favorite one was.

The winner was Anjolina (#12) by one point!


Lily, who was last year's winner came in second (#7).



It's amazing how many places frosting and sprinkles can reach when 13 girls are managing the decorating area!

We gathered in the living room and Isabel asked if she could perform her gymnastics routine for the group which lead to some of the other girls telling stories and performing a dance.

I love their confidence and also appreciate that the other girls are supportive and give their applause.

We had one game to wrap up our night. I had hidden 16 ghosts around the house.
They split into teams of three.
Those who were sitting quietly and waiting for directions (after I'd asked everyone to quiet down more than once) were given an advantage because I finally just whispered the directions to them.
Once a couple of teams were off and running, the other groups realized they were missing out so they settled down and were ready to find out what was happening.

After two separate searches there was one ghost still missing.


My son Jess found it that night taped to the base of the floor lamp right in the living room.











It was a fun night and a great way to kick off the Halloween festivities that will be happening all week.

Thanks to Sauve who brought the awesome treat bags for everyone!

See you in a few weeks at the Christmas party...

Be YOU tiful

It was a wild and crazy night for the SuperGirls!

Apparently having to sit still in school for a couple of weeks and

not seeing each other since August led to some pent up energy.

Anyways, apart from me having to ask them to tone it down and listen a couple of times we finally were able to eat some pizza and talk about our theme for the night which was all about beauty.

We talked about how our appearance is our outer shell but what makes us beautiful is what is on the inside. It is fun to dress in your own style and wear your hair how you like it and play with make up sometimes but that is not all that we are.

The discussion got interesting when we looked at photos of Miley Cyrus' transformation. The girls clearly liked the old look and her more sweet persona but I said if she was a kind and giving person and a good friend, it doesn't matter that she has a blonde mohawk now. We only see her shell.

We talked about Kellie Pickler who shaved off her long blond hair to support her friend who was going through chemo.





We all agreed that the ladies looked just as pretty without hair but that the gesture was far more beautiful and wouldn't you want to be a friend like that to someone?


Our last picture was one of Lizzie Velasquez.
She was born with a syndrome that prevents her from gaining
fat on her body so at the age of 23 she is only 61 lbs.

We watched a short video of her and her best friend and that is when you could have heard a pin drop while the girls watched and listened.

She said people stare and call her names but her true friends just treat her like she's a regular person. The girls all agreed that she was beautiful in her own way.





You can search "Lizzie Velasquez The Doctors Part 1"
to watch it on youtube.com.


The medal for bravery for the night goes to Lauren who then decided to share with everyone her experience of living with a large birthmark on one side of her face. She said that her mom gave her some books with photos of other kids with facial birthmarks so she could read about it and know she wasn't alone.
Besides, she was born that way and there is nothing she can do about it.

All of the SuperGirls agreed that now that we know Lauren and she is our friend, that we don't even notice it! Super neat.

Off to the craft table to create a mini-poster with sayings about beauty and add our own creative touches with stickers and glitter (of course). They turned out great!

Peyton manning the glitter station

Then it was time to play with some make up and nail color for fun.

We rotated between the nail table and the bathroom

(that eventually looked like a bomb of pink eye shadow went off in it).

Peyton's friend Mallory had come to help out so they supervised the nail painting.

The oldest helping the youngest

Dancing, twirling, jumping and screaming ensued as it always does!

We were able to get a quick game of Act It Out in. They chose their own things to act out like kicking a soccer ball, boxing, karate, bike riding, etc.

Ella stood up and screamed with her hands in a frenzy and Mia yells

"You just met One Direction!"

And she'd guessed it right.

Hilarious.

Aspen acting out the scene from Home Alone

It was a fun night and even though I felt like I had to meditate after everyone left, I wouldn't trade spending time with all of these girls.

They are a great group and I hope they all look back and remember all of the fun we had and the friendships they made.

I know I will cherish the memories!

Next, I'll send out a save the date card for the Halloween party which is right around the corner.