A Camping We Will Go

Every year I swear it is the last year I am going to throw my kids a birthday party -- but how can you not when it's the big 1-0??

Ellie is actually the only member of our family who has not been camping (ie slept in a tent).  When we started coming up with a theme for her birthday party I had some really fun suggestions, but Ellie had her heart set on a camping party.  Thankfully my sister and Pinterest helped me with some ideas because I was stuck on what to do.

 Ellie's one desire was to have a tent set up in the backyard so they could go hang out in there.  It was their official make over hut.  For dinner she wanted to roast hot dogs and eat hamburgers.

I was under the impression that hot dogs, which I thought were the universal kid food, are no longer acceptable because no kids I know ever eat them when they come over for a BBQ.  But for some reason if you get to cook the hot dogs over a fire pit, they are the most delicious creation on the planet.  Luckily I didn't have much planned for the party because cooking dinner took an hour and half in itself.  They were seriously happy just to sit around and chat.

After dinner we had a s'more bar and went to play hide and go see in the dark at the park.  They probably would have played that for hours too, had I not had to rush everyone back to eat cake and open presents with 30 minutes to spare.

 

I was probably most proud of Ellie's birthday cake.  That is not my specialty and usually my cakes turn out pretty ugly.  My sister found this on the internet and Ellie HAD to have it.  It was really fun to make the flames (they're just smashed up hard candies melted in the oven and the I broke the sheets into pieces of fame).

It was such a low-key fun night and I'm so glad we got to celebrate Ellie!!!