Some of the greatest memories I have of my childhood is our birthday slumber parties.  I don’t remember exactly when I had my first slumber party, but I’m going to guess it was my 7th birthday.  I only remember that one at our house in Grand Ledge…that was the year I sneaked a peak at my birthday present before hand and had to try to act surprised when I opened my new Chatty Cathy doll.  I had been dreaming of that doll and had asked for it for my birthday…I will never forget the guilt I fell for those few days before the party.  I promised myself I would never sneak to look at presents again.

When we moved to Flushing, we had a nice big farm house to live in.  Slumber parties were the best there.  Cyndi and I occupied the entire upstairs.  A bedroom on each side and a really long room in between the bedrooms with a big dormer window which was mainly storage for the hundreds of books my mom and dad had and a huge playroom for us.  Another thing I loved about our house was the room in the center of the downstairs.  Basically what a hall would be, but it was a square room, with 7 doors leading to 2 bedrooms, our bathroom, the upstairs, a closet, the living room and the dining room.  I remember at one slumber party we all went in separate rooms and we would have a mailperson deliver notes to us under the door.  It was silly, but we had so much fun.

At one party, early on, my mom got out a bunch of fancy clothes and hats and scarves she had and we dressed up and did fashion shows down the stairs.  Our stairway had a landing and at the top there was a little balcony over the stairs.  The judges sat up there with cards 0-10 and we would parade down the stairs in our outfits.  It was so fun that all our friends would come to our parties (Cyndi’s too) and always want to do the fashion show.  It became a tradition that we even would do up into high school! My mom even let us dress up in her wedding dress.  It was awesome!

Oh and I remember pillow fights too!  Those were great.  Someone always got hurt, but it was fun.

Slumber parties now are quite different I am finding out. We’ve only had 2 birthday slumber parties.  One when Savannah turned 7 and the one this weekend for her 11th birthday.  Her first party was a puppy party. Perfect for 7 year old girls.  The girls adopted a puppy from the pet store I set up in the basement playroom.  They got toys for their pets, made dog beds and collars for their puppies, I made adoption certificates for them and we had scooby snacks and peanut butter crunch in dog bowls for a little snack.  I think we watched Hotel for Dogs or something…can’t remember exactly the movie.  They all had fun.  But for a couple of them it was the first time they had ever spent the night at a friends and one friend wouldn’t stay the night.

Savannah and I planned this party, but I got lazy with the invites. I wanted to make them, but didn’t have an idea and then I made them last weekend.  But…Monday there was no school and Tuesday was a snow day, so they didn’t get passed out until Wednesday.  That’s usually not a great thing…most parents like to plan ahead for birthday parties, I know.  So Wednesday, Savannah took her invitations to school…but then found out before she passed them out that a friend of hers was having a birthday party the same night.  She was one of the girls Savannah wanted to invite, and most of the girls were already going to her party.  Savannah was so upset that she decided to not even pass them out.  So we debated about changing the party to the following weekend (which I was really tempted to do because it meant I didn’t have to get my house cleaned up till next week).  But in the end, we decided to just keep it the same day.  She passed out her invitations on Thursday and 2 of her friends from school and her cousin, Caroline were able to come.  So…she wanted a sock monkey birthday party but it’s really hard to find sock monkey stuff and birthday decorations…forget about it.  Oh you can order them, people make sock monkey birthday party decorations…for babies, and you have to order them weeks in advance.  Not happening.  Savannah and I decided to have banana splits (after all monkeys like bananas, right?) and to make sock monkeys.  I’ve made sock monkeys before.  Not the traditional ones, just some with cute old socks we had around our house.  They aren’t too hard.  My idea was to find some socks at walmart or something and let the kids design their monkeys how they wanted.  When I got home from work, Sam decided he was going to go shopping for the party (this is at 4:30 on Friday, mind you) and I told him to get some socks.  He thought they had to be the traditional red heel socks…which we couldn’t find in stock, and they were 15.00 a pair.  So I just told him to get any kind of fun socks and it would be fine.  He came back with these awesome sock monkey kits he found at JoAnn’s.  I was really excited! The girls were too! The kits came with a pair of socks, and everything except the stuffing that you need to make the sock monkey that is pictured on the front.  3 of the girls were experienced at sewing and we taught the one who wasn’t.  They really enjoyed making them.  I told Savannah today, that I think it worked out great that only 3 girls could come.  We would not have been so successful at this project with 8! So needless, to say, the sock monkey project occupied a lot of time.  We never got to the clothes or the stuffed bunny, and one friend had to leave before we had the ears and eyes sewed on.  But maybe we’ll get back together again and finish them up.

Besides the sock monkeys, the girls played Wii.  Mostly they danced to Just Dance and Zumba.  They had a lot of fun with that.  Jasmin even joined in on that excitement before she got tucked in for the night.  We had pizza at about 8:00.  The girls decided they wanted their banana splits at midnight.

Seriously, they wanted to take the first bites at midnight.  They set a timer on Savannah’s ipod and everything! Too funny.  After the sundaes they wanted to watch Despicable Me.  We started that a little after midnight.  Maddie fell asleep right away, Savannah lasted maybe 25 minutes…but Emma and Caroline giggled and commented throughout the entire movie.  I think it was a little after 2 before the were sleeping!

This morning we got up and worked on finishing up the sock monkeys and I made the girls sock monkey pancakes!  I  love how they turned out.

It was really funny to observe the girls and what they spent their time doing at the party.  They really wanted me to find the Bean Directory, because apparently prank calls are the thing to do at slumber parties? Who knew?

Slumber parties are definitely different now than they were when I was growing up.  At the slumber parties I went to I remember watching MTV (which I wasn’t supposed to do), listening to music, playing games like spin the bottle, spoons (during which we all received some serious claw marks), hide and seek and “playing” light as a feather, stiff as a board.  I loved my own slumber parties the best.  Many times I felt uncomfortable at my friends’ parties.  I chose not to participate in some of the more questionable activities, but you know, I wanted to be accepted too, so sometimes slumber parties would bring on a little anxiety.

I hope that Savannah has good memories of her slumber parties and that maybe we can have them a little more often.  Even for the boys, though I think I might not enjoy those quite as much.

😉