Birthdays and Failures

Im going to be lazy and combine two birthdays in one. I know its wrong not to give each girl their own post, but they will get over it. Well, at least one of them will.

First up, we have Madi. It will be 1 month tomorrow that she turned teenager. I know what your thinking...have the teenage hormones hit? And the answer is yes. Yes they have. What kind of excuse would she be for a teenager if she didnt have the occasional mood swing, know it all, disagreeable moments? Dont get me wrong, she is still a good girl, but man! Anyway, onto the big day.

I was a little conflicted about the whole even birthday party only thing, since turning teen is apparently kinda a big deal, but decided to stick to my guns, mainly because I am kinda getting partied out and if I gave her a 13 party, I would end up having to do it for everyone else to be fair. Yes, its completely selfish, but Im okay with that. So we just kept it within the family. She chose to go to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner, then we came home and opened a couple presents.

A cover for her I-Pod

 Cards, gift cards and money from grandparents and Aunt Mindy.

Zack and Bylee worked hard on some cards for her as well.

 The kids got her nail polish and accessories. Brylee had to help since it had her name on it.

 And the thing shes been wanting most, an I-Home. She earned the money herself to buy an I-Pod a few months ago, and ever since then she has wanted one of these to charge it with.

 Madi's cakes always include Oreos, and this year was no exception. But this time, she added ice cream to the middle.

 Nom, Num!

  Dad made her go through a spanking machine. Never too old for that, right?

 Maybe too short though for Brylee.

 And just like that, she turned 13.

One month later, it was Alissa's turn. This time it was an even birthday, so party we must. With the business of soccer we neglected to do a lot of pre-planning for this one. She couldnt decide what she wanted to do, but eventually we narrowed it down to a spa party. She was disappointed that she couldnt do a slumber party, but seriously, there was no time for it. Unfortunately, I feel like this party was the most epic fail of any party I have done. On top of squeezing it in last minute, and in between soccer games and on top of general conference, I felt sickly all weekend. Chills, cough, nausea, back pain, headache, I wanna curl up and die sick. I knew since this was Alissa, I had to pull it together, or she would never let me live it down so like mothers do sometimes, I tried to shelve my physical well being and put on a happy face just to make it through this party. Alissa and Katelin had soccer at 9am, and Zack at 2, so we had to do it in between which meant on top of conference. That also meant, Ryan was gone with soccer all morning up until 30 minutes before the party, so I was pretty much solo on getting everything prepped. Madi did step up and help some so I was grateful for that. She pretty much did the whole cake, made mini-pizzas, and helped blow up balloons to make flowers out of for the decorations. I was so busy and sick, that I didnt take the time to even take many pictures of anything, but the decorations and food were the best part. You'll understand why after reading further.
The first thing we did was a face mask. The girls all thought this was completely disgusting and Alissa almost literally threw up when she smelled it. It was only cucumber, oatmeal and plain yogurt, so not that bad, but how bad would that have been if the birthday girl threw up first thing!? But, all the girls except one were good sports and put it on and tried to relax the best they could. The cucumbers on the eyes were too big, so they kept falling off. Needless to say, this portion of the party didnt last long.

Fail #1.

 Then we let them ease their minds with food. We had chocolate marshmallow fondue with strawberries, apples, marshmallows and pretzels, cheese and crackers, mini pizzas and punch.

 After lunch, we grossed them out again with a foot bath made with milk, lemon juice and olive oil in warm water. Most of the girls kept complaining it was too hot, so we kept having to throw ice cubes in for them. Fail #2.

Ah yes, and fresh rose petals to make it pretty or whatever.  

 As they finished up soaking their toes, I fixed their hair and Madi and Katelin were on nail duty. I was disappointed that none of the girls really picked what I thought were the fancier hair styles, plus I was feeling rushed to get through all 6 of them in time to do presents and cake. I wasnt happy with how their hair turned out, so I will call this Fail #3.

 We rushed through presents since we were getting low on time. Not many pictures here, since I was still fixing the last hair style during the openings and one girl kept standing in front of Alissa so we couldnt get good shots (you know the type). She mostly got a bunch of jewelry and purses, but she loved them all.

 Not good pictures and cramming hair fixing into present opening time equals fail #4.

We had originally decided to just go with mini cupcakes, but couldnt find mini cupcake liners, so I just went for the normal sized ones. Thought I bought this cute little 8 candle that would fit on a cupcake perfectly, but then realized I didnt buy it, so Ryan ended up buying a much bigger 8 before the party. Too big to fit on a cupcake so I decided to make her her own little cake to put it on. Alissa wanted pudding in the middle, but when I flipped the cake out of the pan, all the pudding surfaced on top making it impossible to frost. We just squeezed what we had left of frosting from the cupcakes on top to match the cupcakes and covered the lack of frosting on the side by putting the cupcakes all around it. Guess it kinda turned out like a flower or something.

 Like I said, Madi ended up making the cake and frosting most of it, so I hate to call it a fail for her sake, but, after all that...really? You get the idea.

 This fail got past Alissa all right, but one of her friends stated she didnt like the pudding, and I would have to agree. I wont get into what happened there, but its just another fail.

Lastly, I had bought this pink table cloth as a backdrop to kinda do final individual spa pictures of the girls, but we ran out of time so I just did a group one at the end. In their gift bags they had a necklace, ring, bracelet, scarf and hair flower bow, that would have looked cute for their pictures but alas...Fail #?

Since it was so last minute, she only had 5 girls show up, one of which left early, so this is the complete group. Good things she has plenty of sisters to fill in. Of course I didnt think to let them in the picture...fail, fail, fail! 

After a few, thats right- failed attempts at a good group shot, Emma finally had to wrap her arm around Sarah because she kept raising her arm in front of the camera and making weird frown faces. She must have got sick of standing there. She looks like shes loving on her, but its really her trying not to strangle her!

So heres how the final shot turned out.

Scary to think what these poor girls went home to tell their parents about our failed party. Think this picture is good enough to send them and make them think they had a good time?
This morning as I woke up on the actual day of her birth, I realized it is her golden birthday...8 on the 8th. Totally coulda ran with that. Oh well, too late now. Im a loser.