Christina's birthday party

Thursday, July 23rd we had Christina's birthday party. First, a HUGE THANK YOU to Rachel for watching Daniel, Amanda, and Jonathan during the party so I could focus on Christina. Samantha slept most of the time. Thanks again Rachel!

Here's the invite we sent. We printed envelopes with a magnifying glass and each "detective's" name on it. They were sealed and had a red fingerprint to seal them on the back.

We did a little decorating. I have received many questions about what was going on at our house since then. I guess I should have warned the neighbors. We had caution tape put up on the front door and also the front window.
And when you have a hole in the front hallway, you work it into the party theme. :) A funny note, the wonderful guy who's been helping us with the plumbing issues actually came over while I had the caution tape up. He was worried that things had gotten worse. I reassured him that nothing had gotten worse with the plumbing issues and that I was really grateful for his help.First we had the girls decorate their clipboards. This took a bit of time but they had a lot of fun.
Then we played a live version of the board game Clue. First the weapons--
We had made banners with each of the names of the rooms for the game and placed them in appropriate places. We don't live in a mansion by any stretch so we had to get a little creative. Our conservatory was the back bay window, the library was the corner with the bookshelves, the study was the corner with the desk, etc. A few of the girls we invited weren't able to come so I played too.

We had the detective sheets printed off that they carried on their clipboards. We had prepared envelopes with the remaining cards so we each had 3-4 cards with what we knew. The girls would take turn making accusations with the weapons and then see if someone could prove them wrong. I had gotten plain colored shirts for the girls so they could each play a role in the game.

The girls had a ball acting out the parts and figuring out the mystery. The game took longer than I anticipated so we had to speed it up a little at the end but it went really well. Here's the girls acting out their parts.

I had taken a local bakery a magnifying glass and told them to get creative with the cake after describing what we were doing. Here's what they did--

Christina opening the scroll--

And the cake--
Christina using the magnifying glass to figure out the mystery.
Blowing out the candles. I had gotten plastic champagne glasses from the dollar store and mixed up a 2 liter of pop with a container of thawed white grape juice concentrate. The girls like the "growing up" look of things but got really giggly towards the end.
She also got some nice gifts from her friends. Happy Birthday Christina!