a peek inside the fishbowl

16 May, 2009

A birthday party for a girl who’s ten

Posted by andrea tomkins in: Easy ways to make kids happy

Mark and I have emerged unscathed. I think this has been the easiest party to host so far.

As I mentioned previously, the theme of Emma’s party was “favourite things.”

I’m particularly proud of the invite we created for this one. Emma and I wanted something which would highlight a few of Emma’s favourite things and give sneak preview about what was going to be happening on at the party. I uploaded a couple of photos to Flickr, found a couple others and made a 3D paper cube using Flickr toys.

The photos we chose included:

  •  Emma making a necklace
  •  … with a bag of popcorn
  •  Our favourite night lights 
  • Someone’s great shot of a bowl of spaghetti (Emma’s favourite meal)
  • Someone’s great shot of a rootbeer float (I can’t find either of these last two.)

The sixth side of the cube was left blank. Using MS-Word I created little squares in which I typed out the party details, the time, date and our phone number.

The girls came over at 5:00 on Friday. They hung out for for about half an hour while we made dinner. After dinner there was an impromptu vote for going to the park. We were there for about half an hour and came home to cake and root beer floats (not everyone knew what root beer was… crazy!) and followed it up with popcorn and a movie (which not everyone was able to follow). Oh well.

I gave out their loot-bag replacement gifts before bed. They were beanie baby puppies. Each girl received a different puppy. They loved them. I loved that they loved them, and I loved how it fit into our “favourite things” theme too.

I poked my head in Emma’s bedroom at one point last night to find them all reading under the glow of nightlights, their faces illuminated in blue, white, and green. The girls stayed up until about 10:30, which I think is pretty decent, although I fully expect Emma to crash later today.

Poor Sarah woke up with a stomach ache at five this morning. Too much cake perhaps?

Breakfast was pancakes with strawberries and maple syrup. Now they’re in the living room, watching Saturday morning cartoons in their pj’s. We’ll make tile necklaces before they go. I am pretty happy with how this party turned out. Me: I’m waiting for my coffee to kick in. And after the girls leave I’ll head to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for Emma’s birthday dinner. On the menu: meatloaf, roasted potatoes, and cucumber salad.


6 Responses to "A birthday party for a girl who’s ten"

1 | Scatteredmom

May 16th, 2009 at 12:18 pm

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Happy Birthday Emma!

Sounds like you guys had a fantastic party! ;)

2 | Porter

May 16th, 2009 at 12:20 pm

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That does sound like a great party! Was yesterday her actual bday??? We had a special bday yesterday too.

3 | BeachMama

May 16th, 2009 at 12:56 pm

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Happy Birthday Emma! Sounds like a wonderful party.

4 | Kiki

May 16th, 2009 at 8:05 pm

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We love those night light too! My boys have the blue & green ones, still need to get the red :)

Sounds like everyone had a blast!

5 | Shan

May 18th, 2009 at 10:05 am

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Sounds like a really great party! Happy Birthday Emma.

6 | a peek inside the fishbowl » Blog Archive A 19th birthday celebration in ten easy steps (Ottawa style!) - a peek inside the fishbowl

May 16th, 2018 at 2:33 pm

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[…] night the eldest and I browsed a few past birthday–related posts here on the blog. I tell ya, celebrating 19 years is pretty […]

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The Obligatory Blurb

My name is Andrea and I live in the Westboro area of Ottawa with my husband Mark and our dog Piper who is kind of a big deal on Instagram. We also have two human offspring: Emma (23) and Sarah (21). During the day I work as a writer at The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. I am a longtime Ottawa blogger and I've occupied this little corner of the WWW since 1999. The Fishbowl is my whiteboard, water cooler, and journal, all rolled into one. I'm passionate about healthy living, arts and culture, travel, great gear, good food, and sharing the best of Ottawa. I also love vegetables, photography, gadgets, and great design.

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