Sunday, November 17, 2019

Ally’s 13th Birthday Party

Well it finally happened. Ally is officially a teenager. 
As I write this she is actually in the living room watching a movie with her boyfriend Claudio. Becky and I are watching football in our finally finished 3rd floor. 

It’s been a bumpy weekend as life is for us right now but today we are basking in the glow of a successful party and a good night’s sleep.

Ally has practice at 7am Saturday morning but she was too tired to make it for that early start. But she was there at 8 to join in and brought munchkins to share with her teammates during break time. 

After practice she came home and opened her gifts.





Some jewelry. 

A whole pouch of rings. 



New Nike AirForce One sneakers she has had her eye on for months. This year she did a Pinterest board of things she wanted for her birthday it made things so easy! 





And none of these pictures were rehearsed. This is her honest raw glee and joy over gifts. 


Some cash from great Aunts and Uncles (thank you Suzie+Phil and Cindy+Denny).






Such fun.

Beth helped as usual and Becky and I are eternally grateful that she has helped us host 13 parties to date. 



Becky and I put the photo booth props together. Becky had to try out everything. So cute.


Beth and Becky manually blew up the banner and the 13.


Then it was all Beth and the helium tank. 


She inflated 50+ balloons. 













Ally’s friends Angie and Coco came over before the party started to hang out.


5 of Allys 7 teammates came. Katherine, Mia, Elian’s. Stella and Dahlia.


We figured out how to fit them all in for pasta dinner all 17 of them. 3 more came after dinner during games for the second half of the party. 



All of us had fun in the photo booth we set up in Ally’s room.







Ally and her teammates.




We  had 3 games set up
1) guess how old Ally is; we had 10 pictures printed out and taped up on the wall. 
2) how well do you know Ally? There were questions about her. 
3) get to know other guests; find guests in the group with various things

The games were a big hit and we had Starbucks gift cards as prizes.





An ice cream sundae bar was instead of cake again this year.









I think when your teenager posts to Instagram that she had a great birthday that is about as much validation as you can get as a parent. 

No comments: