Pink Elvis Surprise Birthday Party!

I feel like everyone has a "second mother" - you know, your mother's best friend who has watched you grow up and is listed as an emergency contact on all of your school forms.  Well, my second mother is Gail, or "Gay-Gay" as so many affectionately refer her.

Every year for as long as I can remember, Gay-Gay has not had a birthday... but a birthday week, combined with the 4th of July celebrations on the lake, her niece's birthday, and ending with her mother's birthday.  Gay-Gay loves the birthday attention... well, every year except this year... the big 5-0.

She told her husband she didn't even want to acknowledge her birthday.  She just wanted a quiet day around the house... which is good because that's exactly what she got.  However, the lack of birthday festivities apparently bothered Gay-Gay (ohhh, she voiced her disappointment!) which was also good - because we had a huge surprise planned for her.

The surprise party had been in the works for a few weeks.  My mother and her daughter, Emily, had been working on it.  The guest list had quickly grown from not just the current closest friends and family, but good friends from years past who had lost contact (which was perhaps the coolest part about the party).  Little did Gay-Gay know, her birthday would become a huge reunion.

A black, over-the-hill theme was a huge no-no.  For theming, we decided to go with Gay-Gay's favorite color, pink, and her one true obsession, Elvis.

I designed the invitations using Adobe Illustrator and printed them on 4.25x5.5" cardstock

The cake was created by Kim Brown.

We ordered the slightly larger-than-life Elvis standee from Shindigz.com

The table cloth was actually from my mother's wedding reception... 27 years ago!

The party space

Nothing like walking into a room full of Elvises...

I printed the Elvis heads on cardstock and hot glued them to flat wooden dowels.

The glasses have 'bling' so everyone can identify theirs... we host quite a few parties.

Pulling off a surprise is of course the trickiest part.  The plan was that Gay-Gay, Emily, Mom, and I would go see Magic Mike and while we were at the movie, all of the guests would come to the house.  Dad and Gay-Gay's husband, Perry, would park the guests' cars at the end of the street so that when we came home, it would look like a typical, lonely evening at home.

Getting Gay-Gay to our house... we had already ditched Gail for dinner (ohhh, she was not happy) with the excuse that my mother had to drive my sister to Columbia (we had to prepare food and decorations for the party).  After the movie, Gay-Gay wanted to get fro-yo at Yogurt Mountain... but we had to get her to the house.  It took some pleading... literally.  Mom - "Ohh, Gail, I forgot your birthday present at home!  Please why don't we just go to my house?  Can we do that?"  Gail - "Oh, that's fine." (No, that was not fine.  You could read it all over her face.)

YES!  We were headed home.  Pulled into the driveway and there were no cars except my father's.  I ran downstairs to grab the camera and we shoved everyone into the bedroom.  It's a good thing Gail was behind us because it took everyone a minute to calm the giggles while holding up Elvis masks.

Mom - "The cake's in the basement.  Hey, I put a new bedspread on your bed [Gail has spent the night here a few times... one of the first and only people to actually sleep in our guest room], take a look!"
Gail - Knocks on the door. "Alec [sister's boyfriend who has also stayed there] isn't in here, is he?"  Opens the door.

How to Throw a Blacklight Party

First of all, I am quite sad that I only added one blog entry for the entire month of June!  But on the bright side, I spent that time gathering material and information for more blog entries!

I figure I'll pick up with one of the first events that occurred this summer... Rachel's Blacklight Party.

You might remember her glowing invitations which were inexpensive and easy to make (simply printed in black ink on neon printer paper) -



Unfortunately, I didn't get to capture as many details as I wanted from the party because we set it all up during the day, but it didn't get dark until right about when the party started... and things started getting moved around.  I did get some party pictures and video, though.



When planning for the party, I did a lot of research on blacklights to try and figure out how many we'd need, but there honestly wasn't that much information out there (mostly people who have blacklight bedrooms).  I figured I'd contribute my new-learned knowledge to those who are also looking to plan a blacklight party.

We spent the most money on blacklights.  Because the party was outside, we needed more lighting than if it were inside.  We spent several nights testing different blacklights so that we could get the perfect arrangement to create the best glow.  We found that our best investment was in four 48" bulbs which we put into two different shop lamps from Home Depot.  The shop lamps cost $15 each, and the bulbs cost $12 each (2 bulbs per lamp).  So, for roughly $40, we had four times as much light as the 22-inch bulbs sold in the casing for $24 at Lowe's.  We hung the shop lamps over our covered dance floor.  For our extended dance floor that wasn't covered, we extended 24-inch bulbs (found for $18 each at Walmart) over the side of our porch above so that the people below would be illuminated.  We also replaced all of our outdoor lights with blacklights.



For decoration, I bought blacklight rope in four different colors from blacklight.com to string over the dance floor.  I also purchased 2" blacklight ribbon which we wrapped around the poles outside.  I purchased blacklight balloons from blacklight.com, as well as LED light-up balloons from coolglow.com, and we inflated them with a helium tank from Party City.  We had a bit of trouble with the balloons... the light on the LED balloons is kind of heavy, so you have to really inflate the balloons so that they will float (and even then, they won't float for long).  And with the blacklight balloons, we thought we'd just let them float on the ceiling, but they all ended up escaping... we should've tied them down.



Our cheapest and most effective decorations was washable neon paint purchased from Michael's.  The day before the party, Rachel and I flung paint all over the ground, creating a cool splattered effect that really glowed underneath the blacklight.  At just $2 a bottle, this was a great, inexpensive decoration for an outside party (it washed off easily with a hose and a scrub brush).



One of our most important purchases was the DJ - without good, loud music, a blacklight party is lame.  We hired my friend from school who DJs.  They brought their own lights that were synced to the music which they were able to project onto the moon bounce for a cool effect.



The dance floor was actually something we already had... Rachel's practice floor for tap in our basement.  My dad had built it out of the plenty of leftover bamboo flooring we already had.  He placed it on top of foam mats which was good for the basement garage, but not so good for the ground.  It rained towards the end of the party, and the dance floor became one giant slip-n-slide.  After one girl busted it, we had to take apart the dance floor and move it.... it was good for the first half of the party, at least!



We purchased two moonbounces for the party... well, one bouncy house and one inflatable slide.  The slide turned out to not be very fun dry, but became very exciting once it began to rain.







All in all, I think it was a fun and memorable party, and the kids seemed to be having a great time.

Rachel's Surprise Family Graduation Party

While we were in Brookhaven, Mississippi visiting our grandparents, our Aunt Debbie surprised us with a graduation party for Rachel!

Our cousin's 3-year-old, Ruth Ellen, was excited to see Rachel!

Our Aunt Debbie decorates cakes, and we're usually in Mississippi for my birthday (which is on the same day as my grandfather's), so I've gotten an Aunt Debbie cake almost every year.... I'm not sure, but this might have been Rachel's first!



I actually didn't realize at first that the cakes were school colors - how thoughtful!



The graduates -



I looked outside and saw this little cutie -



And then we were joined by her older sister, Lillie -



After dinner (hamburgers!), it was cake posing time -





Always be ready for pictures, guys!



Meet Emma, Lillie's twin sister -



Though she is quite tall for a 7-year-old, she's not that tall (she's wearing heels that Rachel had outgrown given for dress-up)...



Now meet the fourth daughter, Mary Michael -







Lillie teaching Ruth Ellen to put her hands on her hips -







Emma and Lillie showed us their Barbie Girl dance that they'd be performing at recital on Thursday.  The tongue is a sign of concentration...





Ruth Ellen joined in as a back-up dancer, freestyle!









This was my first shot at child photography, and these girls were full of energy! The low lighting proved to be a challenge, and I had to doctor almost all of these in Photoshop to brighten and reduce the distracting background.







Mary Michael is such a happy baby. She didn't fuss the entire evening!



The string on her dress kept her occupied for a long time!











Ruth Ellen is not camera-shy! In fact, she might be the easiest of the four girls to photograph! I never would've guessed that.



The three big girls scored a sleepover at G.G.'s! Daddy left, and it was time to get ready for bed -









Times are changing. These girls never knew a world without laptop computers and wireless Internet. When Emma and Lillie saw my iPhone, they asked if they could see it and exclaimed, "You have Temple Run!"  There is at least one thing, however that hasn't changed since my childhood.



Band Aids make everything better.