My oldest daughter's slumber party that is :)
She just turned 11 and really wanted to have a party. Since it's winter, and since we really couldn't think of a place she wanted to have a party, she opted to just have one at home & make it a slumber party.
8 girls came over.
That's a lot of loud, giggly girls!!
It was a bit hard to try & come up with a 'theme' for a bunch of pre-teens. It's an awkard age...in many ways :)
So we decided to do a 'dance party, movie night, slumber party' theme.
I also set up a photo booth of sorts so the girls could take some pics. I used this idea for setting it up and used a tablecloth I had for the backdrop. For some reason I didn't get a pic of it all set up??? But the frame does make for a fun volleyball 'net'!
Yeah, it's kinda big :) But I figured we could take it apart & keep the pieces for any other parties we have.
I purchased 10' sections of the 3/4" PVC piping that cost $6.29/ea at Lowes (the 1" pipe was toooo expensive). I only ended up using 3 pieces instead of 4 like in the link (maybe they had shorter pieces??) 2 of the pieces were cut in 2-3' sections and 2-2'sections. Those made the 2 side pieces & the legs. Then I my hubby cut the 3rd piece into 2-5' sections for the 2 crossbars.
The whole thing cost about $25. Easy peesy.
Then I set up with some props I bought at a local party supply store. I really wanted to have mustaches & stuff like that on sticks but I ran out of time. Always running out of time!
For the photos I used my Instax camera. I was the photographer :) I bought one of those mini smash albums to put the photos in (I'll share that in another post).
After that there was some dancing :)
Notice my little one right in the mix with the big girls :) She so enjoyed having all those girls over!
For dinner I made these pepperoni rolls.
Oh man, they were good!!! As in, I should have made more good. As in, the girls gobbled them all up good!
I will say that 425 degrees was a bit hot in my oven, so I lowered it to about 375 so the tops wouldn't get too brown before the insides cooked...I made more the next day for lunch :) I also just brushed the tops with a beaten egg white. And maybe I wasn't rolling mine as small but I could only fit 2 containers of biscuits in a 13x9 pan so I used an extra 9x9 pan so I could get more.
SO good. I'll definitely be making these again. And again. And again!
I also tried a new recipe for the cupcakes (see here). By far I think this is my favorite recipe that I've tried for chocolate cake.
I like to make things from scratch but I have yet to find a from scratch cake recipe that I like as much as a boxed recipe.
The frosting was super yummy, too. It's very sweet so if you like that kind of frosting you'll like this one.
Just a note, I had to use my hand mixer to get the shortening whipped up enough before adding the sugar (my stand mixer just didn't do it well). I also added some of the heavy cream in after adding just half of the powdered sugar so it would cream up, then I added the rest of the sugar.
Another cute little thing I did with drinks was to add some duct tape to the water bottles. The girls thought this was cute & I was surprised at how many of them actually drank water! They could also add their names to the tape.
After dinner it was sleeping bags, movie time & popcorn. Boy, my popcorn maker got a workout!
The next morning...
Can you see my little one right in the middle of the big girls again??
For breakfast I set up a waffle bar. Waffles, whipped cream, chocolate chips. Yes please!
And just like that it was over. And I spent a good chunk of Sunday afternoon laying on the couch. Cause I was exhausted!!
