Emily's 14th Birthday Party!!!

When it comes to parties and invitations and decorations and themes, I am in my element!

So, when it was time to plan Emily's party, I was feeling so inspired!  I thought it would be super cute to make her invitations light up!!!  She wasn't sold, so I dug out some lights from our Christmas bins to create a mockup.

All of her siblings thought it was super cool.  She still said no.  = (

So, I found her some very generic invitations.  It's a party...yay.  They were exactly what she wanted though, so it was a win.

In between her invitations going out and her party, we took her out to K-Pot for her birthday meal.

Everything was delicious, even though you are cooking your own food. lol.

She really wanted somewhere with Bubble Tea.  When Billy and I had previously visited, I thought that they had bubble tea, but we scoured their menu looking for it without avail.  Fortunately for her, when we got there, they had an assortment of Bubble Tea!

Her final night as a 13 year old!!!

On her birthday morning, I got up 15 minutes early, and everyone else got up significantly earlier than their usual wake time to celebrate our favorite Emily!  She wanted the yellow-canned orange cake with whipped topping-pudding frosting.  It had to sit in the fridge overnight, but still came out tasty!

After singing, Alice had to get ready for school, because she's first out the door, but everyone else got to watch Emily open her gifts.

Sometime later she got her gift from the Helterbrands: more Boba Tea!

As her party approached, I started making 'decorations' for her generic party. First, we filled brown paper sacks with some of her favorite snacks to pass out as goody bags.

Rocks, and I got crazy and put a 14 on them, since it was for her fourteenth birthday.

Generic napkins and Generic plates.

Water.

She did kind of get into the spirit with me, and helped me come up with additional words for the plate rims.

I hid away anything colorful on the fridge, only black and white things allowed.  So, I had to print off a new March calendar page.

Black and white fliers were allowed, mostly because I wanted to label the magnets.

Her party cake was chocolate on chocolate, so only white frosting allowed.  I used cookie frosting, so it was very drippy, and I was forced into writing in cursive, poorly.  It reads "I'm definitely edible."  And I absolutely had to pause in the middle of definitely to check my vowels! lol.

On the day of the party, we had a family uniform.  Billy didn't have a seasonal shirt to match, and Emily didn't want to participate. I don't know why? She wanted a generic party!!!

Grace was a super helper, and helped me clean the house, and set out decorations, making a few things along the way.  It was most appreciated, as Emily was at a band event* until right before her party started.

She covered a can with paper and wrote "not water packets" on it, to set next to the water, in case the guests preferred some lemonade, but I didn't wat to be too excting.

Thank goodness for Kroger delivery!  I was pulling the cake from the oven when I realized that it was not gluten free.  I felt so bad, because Emily's bff Abby is gluten free, and I usually make a gluten free cake, but it slipped my mind until it was too late.  = (  I did remember to order a gluten free pizza though!

Alice got into the spirit too!  Her captions read:

-""Blows up balloon"  The balloon."

-"Inedible"

"Today is Saturday"

"Filled with carbon dioxide"

"you're special all of the time"

Setting up the goody bags and rocks for guests to grab as they leave.

Brown, black, and white.  I was tempted to only put out tortilla chips and plain lays, but I didn't want to waste food, so exceptions had to be made.  They were both gluten free offerings though!  

One of her friends got into the spirit and labelled the refrigerator for us!

Shoes by the door as they were going in and out.

A few pictures that Emily sent my way:

Singing happy birthday to my favorite 14 year old!

Opening her gifts:

Most of the girls were able to spend the night, sadly, it was on the time change, so it felt early, despite ending at noon.

I think she had a fun birthday, despite the bland decor.

later days

*This was a very annoying moment for me.  We looked at the calendar ahead of time, to see when the event was in Charlotte.  Then, with fewer than two weeks to her party, her band director told them that it would be on the Saturday that she'd already cleared with Abby.  So, instead of moving it, she pushed the time back.

edit 3-31-25: backdated for continuity.

Murder Mystery Party: At the Vineyard

February is such a good month for an indoor murder mystery party!  I was able to find a time for the Sandbergs & Olmsteds to come over and party!

The setting was a Napa Valley Vineyard, with Italian ties!  So, for our main course, I made up baked Ziti (one of Billy's favorites.)  I ended up making a second casserole, because I definitely overbought!

I don't make this super often, because it is not my favorite, and because Billy likes the sticky noodles lain out in neat little rows, which is very time consuming.  I've tried the dump method, and he didn't care for it as much, so rows it is!

My mom scored 3 dozen or so wine glasses from the free bins at MSU. I only needed 12 for the party, so when it was time to decorate, I pulled out some 'vineyard' looking decor, and used the extra glasses as accent pieces!  Taking inspiration from the audio cookbook that I listened to a year or so ago, I went outside to see what I could pull from nature to add in.  The dry, decorative grass in our flowerbed was perfect!

I painted some cardboard to make signs, and finally got to display my wine bottle basket!!!  The flowers were an impulse buy.  They were dead looking and sad in the Kroger clearance bucket, but with a little love and water, they were beautiful for the party!

Grace helped me cut some blooms to add to our nametags.

Wine corks are few and far between these days, most of the wines we buy have the screw top, but we still had a small stash from years past that I was able to pull out to add to the effect.

Winking Owl no longer uses corks, so this will totally be vintage in 25 years! 

I made a glass storage box to keep these in my sister's basement for future parties.  I am super impressed that my mom was able to snag all of these for free!

I'm starting to think that Grace loves to party as much as I do!  She wanted to help with decorations, so she made some favors for our guests to take home!  She worked hard to make the notes look 'old.' = )

Next time I will split the cheese/crackers, olive, and grapes onto two boards, because it was tough to get the tasty treats at the other end of the table!

Aldi let me down on the Napa wines front, so I ended up with a generic "California" blend.

I borrowed William's Christmas gift to play the cassette.  Grace tried to help set it up, but this antiquated technology is difficult!

I boiled water and used our fancy flower mold to make ice cubes, but they still had white in the middle. = (  They were an improvement over our regular ice cubes though!

Our party crowd!  David was the new owner of the vineyard, Ralph Rottingrape, Kristy owned the vineyard next door, Hedy Shablee, Kim was the wife of Ralph, Tiny Bubbles, Mark was a German wine merchant, Otto von Schnapps, Billy was an old vineyard hand, Papa Vito, and I was the local successful movie star come home, Marilyn Merlot!

We had a great time, and since I didn't give this game to anyone I know, the murder was Billy!  I got it right, but I feel like I always think it's Billy.  I need to tally up how many times he's been the murder, because I'm pretty sure it's a handful at this point!

We finished in record time, and decided to play a second game!  Billy bought me the Hunt A Killer: A Wealth of Murder for Valentine's day.  It was labeled "hard" and they didn't lie!!!  We solved all the mini puzzles, but were worn out by the end, and ended up just guessing at the murderer with minimal evidence, getting it totally wrong.  Oh well.  It was still fun!

Looking at every piece of evidence, using technology!  This was the bottom of a pill bottle, but was not a clue, just part of the manufacturing process, I guess.

It was a really great night, and I'm always so thankful for the time and energy people put into their costumes, and solving all of these murders, that Billy loves to commit! ; )

later days 

edit 4-2-25: backdated for continuity