The Big 10 year old Birthday!

This year we sorta made a big deal of our daughter’s birthday. First of all, she was turning TEN, hitting the double digits big time! Second of all, because her birthday is in the winter time it’s hard to plan parties so many years we haven’t really done much of anything for her birthday, other than maybe going out for dinner. So this year we decided to give her a nice party with her friends AND also grant one of her wishes. For a long time she’s been asking to go on an overnight at a local casino nearby. I know that sounds SO funny for a kid to ask for – and NO we are not a gambling family – but the casino near us has a beautiful hotel, a huge indoor pool, a shopping mall, lots of restaurants and it’s actually a pretty cool place {if you negate the gambling part!} Anyway, she’s been wanting to stay at the hotel for a while now and we decided this birthday was a good time to do it. But first, here are the details on her friend party:

 

 

I’m always on the look-out for cute but inexpensive party favors – I got these Scentos markers at Micheal’s for just a dollar each. For some reason little girls seem to LOVE scented pencils, pens, markers, erasers, etc.

 

Because she’s really into One Direction I got these plastic cups with each of the boys from One D on them – also just a dollar each.

Then I made some Chex Muddy Buddies with some added sprinkles and M&M’s and put it all in these cute little bags. And for the most part, that was it – simple, inexpensive favors.

My girls love when I make their cakes and even though I’m nowhere near a professional I always have fun trying to create what they want. She wanted a turquoise layered cake with some sort of zebra print on it. THANKFULLY Wilton makes these things called ‘Sugar Sheets’ which is how it got the zebra look. You simply cut the sugar sheets how you want and apply it on the cake. I also tried a recipe from Pinterest for Marshmallow Fondant and it turned out GREAT! It was easier {and tastier} than I expected.

 

This was during pizza time – there were 3 other girls who came a bit late. I was SO thankful for the two Grandmas being there to help me with everything!

It’s a long story how this happened, but even though we hadn’t planned it the girls got to watch a Native American maple syrup demonstration. They happened to be doing it the day we were using this community center so we went to check it out. The girls thought it was neat and got to each have a maple sugar candy to try out.

 

They played a bunch of silly games … the one called Bus Stop Musical Chairs was a HIT! Who knew even older girls would love such a classic game!

She blew out the candles and we had cake and ice cream…

Then she opened gifts and it was time for the girls to be picked up. I always love taking a picture with the birthday girl and each of her guests, it’s a cute thing that you can include when you send out a thank you note. {this is her sister, but still her friend!}

 

Now the second part of her birthday was our night at the casino/hotel. I will say hotel from now on because honestly we never even stepped foot on the casino floor!

We had a room on the 29th floor! It was such an incredible view from up there! We got all checked in and spent a little time relaxing in the room [I enjoyed a lovely Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks}.

 

LOVE this girl!

 

Since our room faced the west we saw the GORGEOUS sunset that night. It was such an incredible view of the sky from way up there.

Then we changed into swimsuits and went down the the huge indoor pool. The water felt so chilly to me so my hubby and I spent our time in the hot tub and/or just relaxing on lounge chairs. The girls enjoyed the pool for quite a while though.

 

Then we went back up to our room, showered and changed and got all ready for dinner.

The birthday girl chose Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville for dinner. It has such a fun atmosphere, there are full size boats and huge palm trees in the restaurant – for a short time it made us feel that we were somewhere tropical and warm instead of New England in the middle of snowy February! The other fun thing at Margaritaville is that they have this guy walking around on stilts who is making Balloon shapes and animals. The birthday girl chose a Peace sign for hers …

 

And the older girl got a heart on a long stem.

The birthday girl chose peel and eat shrimp for an appetizer for everyone to share and it was SO good.

 

After dinner we took them to the kid’s arcade for a while, then got some delicious Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for dessert, then headed back to our room to relax. Little Birthday Miss didn’t last too long once her head hit the pillow … I think it was a successful birthday when you see her this worn out!

In the morning we picked up some Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast on the way home … one good thing about the casino and hotel is that they have all sorts of yummy choices for food and treats – one bad thing is that none of it is healthy! Oh well, the birthday girl thoroughly enjoyed all her special treats and choices. She was a very happy girl. =)

 

Happy 10th Baby Girl, we love you SO much!!!

A Room Reno for a 10 Year Old!

My youngest daughter just turned TEN! It’s so crazy to think she’s already in the double digits! For her birthday she wanted a room renovation. She has a tiny little room and it was SO cluttered and crowded with SO much stuff so it ALWAYS felt so messy and disorganized. So along with giving her a few new things that were more her style, we had to find ways to maximize the space in her room. In case you aren’t sure how small I mean by tiny – it’s about 7 feet by 10 feet and I know people who have closets bigger than her room! Anyway, here are a LOT of photos of what we did.

 

Some before shots – keep in mind this was a crazy weekend for us and her room was EXTRA messy with junk, plus her mattress was in her sister’s room from a sleepover the night before. This is looking toward the right from the door of the room. 

 

And this is looking toward the left from the door of the room.

This is looking straight on, you can just about see the wall on both sides of the room.

 

First we emptied out EVERYTHING we possibly could with the exception of a couple pieces of furniture. I took down the window treatments and washed the super nasty, dirty windows and window sills.

 

We FILLED my dining room with all the junk from her room! I seriously thought it looked like an episode of Hoarders and could NOT believe ALL this stuff fit into that tiny little room! Seeing all that stuff motivated me that we had to get rid of some things and make the whole room more functional for her.

 

And this is the tiny closet. There was one shelf {around where the middle one is in this photo} and one bar for hanging clothes. But her closet was always a crazy mess and she never hung her clothes up properly. So we lowered the bar and added 2 extra shelves … you’ll see in the later pics how much more efficient this makes the tiny space …

Here is the ‘in progress’ photo – the walls are painted, the doors and trim are all painted and it’s just drying overnight.

 

In the morning we moved the furniture around. This bed is fabulous because it has drawers underneath, but it also had a bookcase headboard that held a lot of junk and just took up a couple extra feet of space – so we took the headboard away and it added a bit of space to the room. Every little inch of added space was helpful!! Side note, someday we will replace the rug, for now it was not in the budget and even though there is beautiful hardwood under it we feel that it warms up the room a lot to have a rug – so that will come at a later time.

 

See how the bed now butts up against the wall instead of a headboard, she really doesn’t miss the headboard at all at this point. I also painted that little dresser. It used to be in the closet and holds her PJ’s, socks and undies – but we pulled it out to use as a nightstand and I painted it to match the room. At the last minute I decided to try the Chevron look with some scotch tape and it came out pretty good! Not perfect but good enough!

 

On the other side of the room we put 2 bookshelves. We took the desk out of her room {it was just used to hold clutter and not really functional} and we purchased the cube style bookshelf {the tall one we already owned}. The black shelves you see near the ceiling are ones a friend of ours installed for us when we were pregnant with our first baby. They hold stuffed animals, trophies, etc. and have been a WONDERFUL thing to have in a little girl’s room for all these years {especially girls who like to collect lots of things!}.

 

I tried to cover her lampshade with fabric – UGH, I should have looked up a tutorial or something because it did not turn out well. But it’s there for now until I can do something better.

 

And I re-did her bulletin board since she has pretty much outgrown her Princess theme … I got some fabric that matched the room and some ribbon and buttons to match – a whole lotta hot glue later and it turned out great!

 

Here it is hanging on the wall before putting all her little mementos on it …

And with all her stuff …

 

And here is the AFTER of her room when you look into it from the doorway … it’s so light and bright and airy now!!! She got the new bedding for her birthday and we already had the curtains.

Because she’s 10 and she still needs to be allowed to ‘make it her own’ she was allowed to put up all her posters after the room re-do was all done.

The paper lanterns in the corner were something we already owned.

 

Here is her bedside area …

And the opposite wall with some things she already had. The little shelf was something she got a long time ago but we had never gotten around to painting. So I got a can of dark purple spray paint and painted it to go in the room. It turned out so cute!

Here is her tall bookshelf filled with her stuff. We got those blue bins at Five Below and they are fantastic for holding a lot of her things. She also has her American Girl doll bunks and other doll stuff over on this side of the room.

I labeled the bins so it will be easy for her to know where things go when she needs to put stuff away. I love how the inside of the bins has the same polka dots and colors of her bedding!

 

And here is her other shelving unit filled with her stuff. I got rid of a lot of stuff so it wouldn’t be totally overloaded. The trash can in the bottom right corner was also from Five Below and matches perfectly!

On the upper shelves she has lots of things that she doesn’t use much {if at all}. Trophies, snowglobes, stuffed toys, etc. …

After we got all the shelves in the closet I painted the WHOLE thing to match the room. Amazing how the color in the closet can already make it look so much better! I didn’t worry about doing a perfect paint job since no one will ever see it closely.

 

And then we filled it back up with her stuff! The highest shelf has some blankets that are just for extra use. The middle shelf has her instrument, some hats and some bins to hold special things she likes to save. The bottom shelf has 3 green bins {that we already had} and even though they don’t really match her current décor I thought it would be silly not to use them so in the closet they work just fine. I filled them up with her crafts supplies and let me tell you she has A LOT! It was SO nice to have a place to store all that since before it all cluttered up her desk area.

I also put a little hook on the left side wall to hang her necklaces from…

 

These bins also got labels so she can keep her things organized and put away. Having the closet set up this way has helped a lot! She has so much more storage space and there is a place to put everything away now!

Finally here is one last BEFORE picture of the room ….

And the AFTER!!