I Want to Rock and Roll All Night...

...and have surprise birthday parties for Kaitlyn every day!

The whole surprise birthday party idea came up during a Family Home Evening lesson several weeks before her birthday. We had just read about how President Thomas S. Monson was asked what he wanted for his birthday and he responded that he wanted all of the members of the church to do a good turn for someone else. Although Kaitlyn accepted that as an alright idea she quickly clarified how she would respond to the question and said: "I would ask for a surprise birthday party!" Later she expounded further that the surprise birthday party should be princess themed, and include a carnival "just like Ali's birthday."

With the help of our in-house Stampin' Up demonstrator, we had her stamp and make birthday party invitations sans the date/time/place--so that although she knew she was getting a party, she had no idea when it would be.

Max interpretted "princess party" to mean "heavy metal concert" and used Megan's mascara to put on his best KISS / Alice Cooper face.


Once that was done, my job was to take Kaitlyn Christmas shopping for Alison (if only to get her out of the house so her friends could arrive undetected). And, I must say, I did a pretty good job of arriving precisely at 2:10 p.m. at the house. It took "accidentally" driving the long way home (as Kaitlyn observed, "Dad! You missed the turn into our neighborhood that way!") to make sure we didn't arrive too early.

When we walked in the door, Kaitlyn wasn't quite sure what was going on at first...


...but she figured it out pretty quickly, and felt very loved.


While I was gone, Megan (with the kind help of her parents) had piled seven 5 year-olds (and 3 older sibling "helpers") into the kitchen to yell "Surprise!" when we walked in. After settling down from all that excitement, we had the girls make princess crowns to match the princess outfits they were invited to bring and wear to the par-tay.


The second part of the party was the carnival games (a-la Alison's birthday party) and the redeeming of tickets won at the games for worthless trinkets and treats at least as valuable as those exchanged for Manhattan (show below after being ransacked, er, bargained for).

We wrapped up with the opening of the following wonderful presents from her friends (so you can see what items are of interest to 5 year-old girls these days):

• Disney Princess coloring scroll and markers
• Pink skirt for playing dress up
• Box of candy canes and Dora notepad games
• "Alexis" Liv doll
• Littlest Pet Shop (or "LPS" as Kaitlyn abbreviated when she wrote her 'thank you' notes)

I think everyone involved had a great time. And, everyone involved over 18 had a good time enjoying the peace and quiet once it was over.

And since we're talking Kaitlyn let us provide another representative "Funny Things Kate Says (or Said)":

Megan was hugging Kaitlyn for no reason one afternoon and said, "Kaitlyn, you know we love you. We're so glad you're in our family. Do you know that?"

Kaitlyn responded, "I know. You tell me all the time...and it's giving me a headache!"