Maya's 8th Birthday

Maya and her friends!

Friday, February 25th, I threw Maya an 8th Birthday party. I say I because Scott was actually back in Michigan for work for a week, so it was only me, myself and I putting it together and putting it on...and let me tell you, I am not sure how I thought I could do it all by myself!


Blowing out her candles!

Maya and I decided it would be fun to do a scavenger hunt for her party. This is the first time we have lived in an apartment, and we are so very fortunate to have fun, wonderful neighbors spread out through all of the A-D buildings. Eight of my friends agreed to participate, another, though going out of town for that week, put a bag of surprises on her door, and we even utilized the rooftop, by hiding mini cans of Pringles for each girl. The girls were given a list of apartments they could go to, a list of items they needed to try to collect, and a list of rules they had to follow- like they could only Skip, had to stay with their assigned partner (we picked from a hat), had to figure out what apartment in the B building had something hanging from their door, the could only get 3 things from an apartment before they had to move along (they could always come back after they had visited another apartment), and because I have such incredible neighbors, they each set up their own task for the girls to complete before they could ask for any of the scavenger hunt items and collect the prizes that I left at each apartment. One had them get her dogs footprint, another made them read and play a song on the Piano, another made them say Happy Birthday in Sri Lanken, another tell knock-knock jokes...I tell you, I am pretty sure the adults had as much fun as the kids did!

After the scavenger hunt, we played the "Mummy wrapping" game. I bought (not very smart on this one) the cheapest toilet paper I could find, grouped the girls again and they had to race to try to wrap up one of their teammates, using all the toilet paper, before the other teams. They had a complete ball! By the end, they had unraveled every roll of toilet paper and were playing in it like it was a leaf pile- each got a turn getting buried- it was a messy disaster.


So glad this was in the Party Room and not our apartment!

They then went on to paint their nails (bought every color available at the 100Y store!), eat pizza, and have cake and ice cream. By the end, I think everyone involved (including me and my friend Jenny, whose girls were at the party and who ended up helping me out, thank God!)was completely exhausted. Maya had her friend Tara Grace sleep over, but they didn't last very long after the party was over- they were beat! :)

Scott's trip back home to Michigan
Scott ended up coming home from his trip back to Michigan right at the end of the party with a pretty exhausting story of his own. He ended up coming back to MI during a huge snow/ice storm. He flew into Detroit and had to drive the 2 hours to Portage, which took him over 4 hours. That night, the hotel, The Residence Inn, lost power- so he had no heat, no lights, no TV, no Internet. He ended up hanging out at our friends, the Van Winkle's (thank you Chris and Joell) for the evening, and went back to power, but no heat (they gave him a space heater), no TV and no Internet the remainder of his week...he was NOT a happy camper, but he was so ready to be back home with us!