13!

I still find it hard to believe that I'm the mother of a teenager (I'm also the mother of a 2 year old.  That wasn't planned out too well).  For Kelsi's 13th birthday, I wanted to do something special, something that would celebrate her transition out of childhood into becoming a young woman.  I looked all over the internet trying to find ideas, but all I could find were coming of age ceremonies from other cultures and crazy slumber parties where they all talked about periods and feminine hygiene products.  Not quite what I was looking for.  So, I planned a fancy dinner with all her female relatives.  And chocolate.  Lots of chocolate.

Daniel's sister made all the awesome tissue paper flowers and I used the china my grandma passed down to me and the real silverware my other grandma passed down to me!   Sadly the picture isn't that great, but you get the idea!

We had two chocolate fondue fountains, with plenty of goodies to dip!

And a hot chocolate bar with goodies as well.  

And of course the food!

I wanted her gifts to be special, so I came up with a couple of ideas and everyone was nice enough to help out!  The first gift was a scrapbook.

Not a typical scrapbook full of pictures, this scrapbook is full of nooks and crannies for storing special items and tons of spots for writing.  So I asked everyone to either write some things in it, or bring a note/letter for her to store in it.  The idea is to have a memory book full of words from the women in her family.  She loves it!

The other gift was a Pandora charm bracelet (I use the name "Pandora" loosely here.  Have you seen how much those cost?!).  For this, I asked everyone to get her a charm for it that way she'd have a fun bracelet full of gifts from the women in her family.

I think in all the party was a success, and hopefully one she'll remember for a long time.  

She seemed to have a lot of fun.  I know this because she pretty much talked nonstop which is what she does when she's happy ;)

Happy birthday to my beautiful Kelsi!