Birthday slumber party

I'm trying to remember how many slumber parties I had as a child. I know I had a lot and I always invited a lot of friends. I don't know why my parents let me have so many because I know my siblings didn't have even half the number I did. Plus, it is a lot of work! I particularly remember my mom making about 20 corn husk dolls for one of my birthdays. They were so cute, but took hours and hours.
Last weekend we let Siena have another birthday slumber party. She and her friends had a blast. In a way, it is not as much work as when she was little because they are more able to take care of themselves, but it was still a lot of prep time. Of course, I understand that I put most of the work on myself. Siena doesn't really require that much anymore. As she's gotten older, she plans her own games and schedules the activities. I used to stress out over how to entertain everyone, but now I let Siena take care of that. The last couple of of years I didn't even have to decorate a cake because that was part of her game plan. Ultimately, I always end up spending too much money and I tell myself that the next year we are doing something simplier.
This year Siena wanted a Japanese theme so they made sushi out of cake and candy.

For party favors we got some lotion/bath gel, chap stick, nail polish, and little soaps made to look like roses. We started out with just the favors and then I came up with the grand idea of making 7 kimono silk purses . I know, I'm crazy, but they were so beautiful! Then we couldn't figure out what to put the soap roses in because they were so delicate, so I made origami paper boxes.

Of course, we had to follow tradition (not Japan's, but Arizona's) and make a pinata. It was a cat's paw for some reason. Pinatas are fun to have, but it is time consuming because I don't buy them and I am always trying to figure out a different way to make them every year. Usually, I make them indestructible which is not really the point with a pinata. I would have given up the tradition a few years ago, but Siena loves it so much. I don't know if Spencer or Lily will ever get one though.

So the day of the party, I busily clean my house, go shopping, make the paper boxes and get another inspiration to make paper scrolls with Japanese writing on them. So minutes before the party, I was throwing those together. It's crazy, but I get caught up in it. At 4:40pm I was frantic because people were going to start arriving and I was still hanging things up, but Siena reminded me that it started at 6:00pm not 5:00pm, so I stopped screaming at everybody and calmed down.

When Paul's mom was visiting in August, she and Siena had made cute little paper kimonos to string up, but we couldn't remember where we put them. I finally found them after everyone was already here, so I hung those up, too. It was then that I realized I went way overboard because just those would have been beautiful enough.

The girls ate tons of junk, watched Japanese Studio Ghibli movies, and played lots of games.

Unfortunately, I had to do the Heimlich maneuver on one of the girls when tootsie rolls got stuck in her throat. It was scary for everyone, but afterwards they all continued to have fun. Most of them got 2 hours or less of sleep so Saturday and Sunday were spent recuperating.

When next year rolls around, somebody come tie my hands together and whisper a little reminder in my ear to go bowling or to a movie.