Carly's Spa Birthday Party

Carly turned 10! For a month we planned her birthday. The most difficult thing for her was choosing who to invite. There are girls that she has been friends with since kindergarten that she feels loyalty to, though they are growing apart. She has dealt with a some girl bullying issues at school, so one of her tasks to over come it was to make 2 new friends and invite them to her birthday party. She chose two very sweet girls from her class. Then she invited 4 other girls that she has known for years. We ended up choosing a spa party and enrolling help from Hanaah. She was amazing, doing hair, cooking dinner, refilling the foot spa, doing make-up, and painting nails. The girls were not demanding at all . . . some were even too shy to ask for anything.

The party went off well. The girls all got along. There was very little drama (tho we weren't drama free - that's another post).

They started out a different "beauty stations". They loved the facials and foot bath! The giggling went on and on. Some girls were into doing everything themselves, others wanted to be pampered. We included pink lemonade in personalized cups. They thought it was great to be served a bubbly treat while the bubbles were overflowing from the foot bath at the same time.

Instead of a cake or cupcakes, Carly chose individual apple and blueberry pies. The girls seemed to enjoy that as well! No one complained (maybe it is because they had free reign over the whipped cream?!)

Carly got a great surprise that evening. She had been feeling down, like she was growing apart from her friends, like life was getting harder and harder. Carly began to open her gifts and was touched by some of them. Touched by how well her friends knew her. Her faith in friendship was renewed and I could see the weight from the last few months just lift off of her shoulders.

I know that such importance shouldn't be placed on gifts, but there is just something about receiving the perfect gifts. Something about receiving something that someone so obviously put thought into.