for our girl

Stella turns eight tomorrow. Unbelievable. She is an amazing young lady, even if she takes after her parents a little too much. I love, love, love her, of course, and want to give her everything.

Stella thinks nothing is going on for her birthday. She thinks we're just going to a pumpkin patch tomorrow to celebrate, just the four of us. What she doesn't know is that I'm picking her up after school with seven of her friends, who also don't know anything, and we're coming home for a quick and sweet surprise birthday party! My mother did this for me when I was around her age and it is something I never forgot. She had me come down to the garage to help get the groceries, but instead of groceries it was a car full of my friends! I hope Stella feels the same way about this surprise!

I am throwing things together quick and dirty. I bought five of the posters above from our local shipping store. One is on the front door, three more are hung inside and the last one I just decided to turn into a "pin-the-candle-on-the-cake" game. My glue gun should just never get unplugged, it's always good for something. I've got another crazy game and some snacks, then we'll order a pizza or two. I was thinking of letting them go crazy and order the world's most disgusting pizza, but we'll see what they say. Then a special cake idea (using my donut pans, of course) that I need to get back to right now, and then our house turns back into a pumpkin at 8:00 tonight.

I will say, it was interesting and a little hard selecting which friends should come to Stella's party, since she had no say in the guest list. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, and there are many more little ladies (Stella is just not into boys right now!) that I would've loved to invite, but I'm already walking down the Panhandle with eight eight-year-olds today. Any more than that would just be crazy. It's hard to figure out. Stella never seems to care what group she is involved with, save for one friend that hurt her badly a few years ago, so I sort of forgot that other girls might not feel the same way. I was going to go strolling onto the pick up yard at school with a bunch of balloons until one of the other mothers politely suggested I might be a little more discreet. Took a minute to sink in, but she was right. This is delicate stuff!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and please come back next Monday because I just finished a super great project I can't wait to share with you. It's beautiful here right now, I hope it is where you are, too! xoxo