Sleepover 12th Birthday Party

Well I have to say that my daughters recent sleepover party was a real success both in terms of the girls having fun (no 1 priority obviously) and the amount of work I had to put into it!

If I am honest this party was easy and would have been easier still if I hadn't stressed out about cleaning the entire house before hand (my only excuse here is the same I have before I go on holiday IT MAKES ME FEEL BETTER, OK!)

Here are my top tips:

• get rid of annoying siblings (younger brothers just get in the way and in the case of my son make me shout!)
• if you think your husband will find any of the following difficult to deal with then get rid of him too:
• screaming, giggling girls until at least 2pm
• loud music
• spending the evening "out of the way"
• just the thought of having 5/6 12 year old girls in the house
• not stressing over how much pizza, sweets or fizzy drinks are consumed.

Far better to deal with all this on your own than have to worry about how the other half is coping and if he is prone to shouting (thankfully my husband is not) then definately send him out for the evening!

• order in food (we had a voucher for take away pizza) the girls loved having their food delivered and I loved it too because there wasn't any cooking to do!
• make sure you have plenty of things for them to do, even if they don't end up using them. Heres what we did:

• Kiss the Poster (bit like pin the tale on the donkey except they have to try to kiss the lips of a famous popular person eg someone from 1 Direction or whoever they are in to, while blindfolded) so that they can see where they have kissed they have to apply lipstick and this caused lots of hilarity for my girls :)
• Crazy dress up - provide some bizarre items like silly hats, masks, grass skirts etc and the girls take turns to dress each other up while the person being dressed is blindfolded! This caused loads of giggles and made some great pictures!
•  Make a movie - so easy I just handed over the camcorder and they made a film of each other larking about - they watched the film over breakfast the next morning to much laughter!
• They also watched a couple of films with popcorn and sweets to nibble on
• Remember to keep some spare activities just in case they get bored I had stuff for a few more games but didn't need them.
• stay in the background, as hard as it was (because I like to control things) I stayed upstairs most of the evening and let them get on with it.

The girls had a really lovely girly, giggly evening and eventually at about 1.45 the noise stopped and they fell asleep.

I didn't have room upstairs so they all slept in the lounge which was decorated with fairy lights, throws and pillows with cuddly toys dotted around. There were little dishes of sweeties for her friends when they arrived (all in their pj's)

The next morning they were up surprisingly early and watched the film they had made, ate their breakfast, sang happy birthday to the birthday girl and then it was time for them to all go home and for us to go back to bed, I wish.................................