I should be vacuuming, washing floors and cleaning the bathrooms right now, but it has been two weeks since Miss 10’s Slumber party and if I don’t just stop everything and share with you, it’s never going to happen. So, here it is: We had a blast! Seriously, I was a little worried about how I was going to keep 11 ten year old girls entertained all night and until 10 o’clock the next morning, but they were the most delightful bunch of kids and I had such a good time with them that I am finding myself secretly planning Miss 8’s slumber party in my head even though we have set a family rule of no slumber parties until your 10th birthday, which makes it two years away.
All of my carefully laid plans took a back seat to sick kids and doctor’s visits that week, but I managed to get everything done before the party (apart from the decorating of the cake) and when the girls arrived they had an impromptu disco in the media room (fancy name for the formal lounge) which was the room we designated for the slumber party. Some of the mums stayed for a while and chatted with me in the kitchen while I finished off the cake which was a large bed with six little girls sleeping in it. I had all sorts of plans to decorate it, but I ran out of time and at the last minute Miss 10 decided she wanted it to have a pink bedspread on it instead of a white one with pink hearts, and without thinking I coloured all of my fondant pink, and I didn’t have time to make another batch, so I couldn’t finish it off with white love hearts. I had also forgotten about a bedhead, so I made one out of cardboard and covered it in foil which looked ok, but overall I was pretty disappointed with the final result. I felt that it just wasn’t finished. But the girls loved it, especially when I remembered I had make-up candles of mascara, lipstick, a perfume bottle and nail polish. And for some reason, they all wanted to eat one of the heads! Talk about a sugar overload.
It really was an easy cake to make. I’ve never made people out of fondant before, but that was probably the easiest part. After I spent half a day searching all over town for a garlic press to make the hair, my friend Helena found one, bought it for me and turned up at school that afternoon telling me it was her gift to me. I’m very lucky to have such a thoughtful friend. I used little jam rolls for the bodies under the covers, I just sliced the bottom off the rolls so they weren’t too high and laid them in a row, coloured my fondant, rolled it out into a large rectangle and draped it over the cake that I had baked and iced with light pink buttercream frosting the night before. I also made the heads the night before. See:
The table was decorated to look like a bed. I considered using fabric for the bedspread, but when I took into consideration all of the pizza etc they were going to eat and get all over it, I decided to use a white sheet for the bottom sheet and a purple plastic table cloth over the top for the bedspread. I popped a pillow and some teddy bears at the end of the table to make it look like a bed. And the table was set with plastic champagne glasses to give it a bit of a grown-up party feel for the girls. And to tell you the truth I think they noticed the glasses more than the fact that the table looked like a bed! Maybe it was one of those things we mums do to make ourselves happy, but the kids don’t really care one way or another about.
I had the whole party roughly scheduled so there was no time for shananigans, but the girls occupied themselves a lot of the time, playing Twister (a gift from one of the girls) and watching movies. Before dinner they played some games I had organized, that they didn’t really need me for, like The Nail Polish Game: This game is a take on Spin The Bottle. The girls sit in a circle with a bottle of nail polish in the middle, they spin the bottle and whoever the bottle lid is pointing to when it stops has to throw a dice and say the dice comes up 3, then that girl has to paint three nails on her fingers or toes. Then she chooses the next nail polish colour and spins that bottle. They all end up with Rainbow Nails, and the girls loved this game so much that when it was finished they cleaned all of the polish off their nails and started again.
Mr8 also organized a game of Name That Tune and the girls were rewarded with chocolate bars if they could name a song. There were a few things we didn’t get to, like The Chopsticks Game. Again the girls would sit in a circle, throw two dice and when someone throws doubles they have to put on a pile of dress-ups including gloves, sit at a table and eat as many M&M’s with chopsticks as they can until someone else throws doubles. Then that person has to do it.
We were also going to make pretty bags of bath salts with the girls choosing their own colour and fragrance, but we just didn’t get around to it, they were having so much fun just doing what they were doing. At least I will have all of that stuff for another party, and I find it’s always better to over-plan than under-plan and be stuck thinking of things to occupy the kids with at the last minute.
After the games it was time for Miss 10 to share The House Rules with her friends. I did a lot of research on slumber parties and sharing some rules with the girls was highly recommended.
Our Slumber Party House Rules
Rule Number 1: Have Lots and Lots of Fun!
Rule Number 2: Include everyone in everything and try your best to get along with Everyone.
Rule Number 3: No Pillow Fights inside.
Rule Number 4: Lights out at midnight.
Rule Number 5: Bedrooms are off-limits.
The girls were really, really good at keeping all of the rules, and unfortunately, when we headed outside for our pillow fight we discovered it had been raining so it was too dangerous, cold and wet to run around on the wet grass. But they didn’t seem to mind, they headed back inside for another game of Twister and a movie while they waited for the Pizzas. I decided to keep the dinner menu simple with pizzas, chicken nuggets and chips for dinner, followed by cake and jelly cups for dessert. After dinner it was more movies and popcorn in some popcorn containers I found that look like the ones you get at the movies. Another movie later it was time for hot chocolate with marshmallows (of course), which was supposed to make them sleepy, but when it hit midnight only half of them were sleeping and the other half were quietly enjoying a movie, so I let them stay up until 1am. Mums get to change the rules if they want! After the movie they were on the move again, getting drinks, going to the bathroom and brushing their teeth, waking the sleeping girls and when I finally herded them all back into bed they all talked and giggled in the dark until 3am! Yes, you read that right. It was 3am!! There were a few “Don’t make me come in there and sleep with you!” moments, but as I lay on a mattress in the family room listening to them I couldn’t help smiling and thinking to myself that this is what slumber parties are all about: Staying up late and giggling with each other in the dark when you are supposed to be sleeping. Life’s pretty great when you are 10!
The next morning they were up at 6am, they put a movie on and entertained Miss3 for me while I had a quick shower. What a great time Miss3 had at this party, she was the star of the show with the girls taking turns looking after her and making sure she was fed and had a turn with each game. Nobody wanted breakfast until 9, and despite being offered a variety of things for breakfast, they all opted for cereal. I’m sure they all still had full tummies from the night before.
Then we made friendship bracelets and waited for their parents to arrive. Two of the girls were staying until lunch time because their parents had commitments with other children, so Miss10 got to hang out with them and play with her presents and ride bikes for the morning.
All in all the party was a success. Apparently the girls all wrote about the party in their journals at school Monday morning. It was lovely to be able to let Miss 10 experience a slumber party, sleepovers at someone else’s place are a bit tricky when you have an insulin pump to manage. There is another little girl in her class who is also a Type 1 Diabetic, and she has the same pump, so it was lovely to be able to invite her to stay over. When she got into the car the next morning she told her mum “It was the best night of my life!”. And in case you missed them on facebook, these are the lovely Proteas she gave me as a thank-you when she arrived at the party.
Well, the twins are turning 8 on Monday, so there are two more parties to plan. Miss 8 wants an Almost Sleep-over (the sleepover you have when mum and dad say you are too young for a sleepover), and The Vegemite Kid wants an Iron Man Party. Any suggestions? Stay tuned, this could be interesting.
On a final note, all I can say is if you are thinking of letting your kids have a sleepover, but you are worried about pulling it off, just jump in and do it, plan a lot, set some rules, and think about how you would have felt if you had been allowed to have a sleepover when you were a kid. Childhood is so fleeting, but filled with opportunities for excitement and the making of memories.