Okay ladies, I need your best creative ideas! My DD turns nine in a few weeks and we're thinking of an evening party on a Friday night. What on earth should we do?? Obviously dinner, which will take up some time, thank goodness! How long should it last? Should it be like 5:00 to 8:00?? Do nine year olds still need party favors? Is an evening party a bad idea? It seemed like less pressure because dinner was involved and was kind of an 'event' in itself. I'm just clueless. I hate to rent a video and do nothing but have them sit in front of the tv.

Also, I have the same problem everyone faces....we don't want to invite all the girls in the class! But the class is small..only seven girls total, including my DD. She likes four of them, which would leave two out. If we knock another off the list and only invite three, and exclude three (the ousted one being not nearly as close as the other two to my DD) is that fair as long as we mail the invites?? Then there are two more from a church group, so if everyone came it would be a total of six girls. Is that too small a party?? Help!!

By Tunnia on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 05:01 pm:

My dd turns nine is a few weeks as well (Apr 5th) and she is having a slumber party this year and I have set a limit of only three girls because if I let her invite everyone she wanted to we'd have a group of 20 because she's really social.

Anyway, I think it's ok to keep the list small and yes, I'd mail the invitations if you are not inviting everyone so that no body gets their feelings hurt.

What kind of dinner are you planning? If it's a fancy dinner party then I'd put on the invitation to dress up. For the party, dim the lights and light candles, have place cards, good dishes, serve three courses (salad, entree, dessert), have a bouquet on the table, and play soft music.
Or...
You could have a dinner that they get to prepare and eat. They could make meatball subs, calzones, pizzas, spaghetti and garlic bread, etc. They would probably have a blast getting to cook. And for dessert they could make and decorate cupcakes or cookies.

My dd loves to cook and actually plans and makes one meal every two weeks (with my supervision). For her slumber party I am buying the stuff to make pizzas and I'm letting the girls make their own.

Have fun!!!

By Bea on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 05:06 pm:

I'd make it a grown up style dinner party with the girls dressing up, and you using your best china and linen. They could have a cocktail hour before the dinner with Shirley Temples and light
hors d'oeu-vres. The girls would be served as if by a maid. It might be fun to make yourself a maid's costume with cap and apron. LOL You could create fancy place markers for each of them...something that could be taken home. The napkin ring could be one of the elastic bracelets that girls that age wear. A fancy decorated cake and maybe hot cider in tea cups for dessert would complete the setting and the party.

By Colette on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 05:22 pm:

Since there are only 7 girls in her classroom I'd invite them all. I think both of the ideas above are great. When my oldest was that age, I bought little mini rose bushes for each of the girls. They are not that expensive and some of them still have them.

By Kate on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 01:07 pm:

Thanks for the ideas, Ladies! Tunnia, too bad we don't live in the same neighborhood....our DDs are two days apart! We have NO girls her age in our neighborhood.

I was actually thinking basic pizza, but the real dinner party sounds adorable. I might put that on hold for another year. Tunnia, what ingredients are you getting for them to make their own pizzas? Are there kits out there? I am CLUELESS in the kitchen.

Do any of you know any info about the new Disney 'Ice Princess' movie coming out March 18th? I wonder if it would be appropriate enough to take them all to. That would solve my problem!!

By Mommmie on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 02:15 pm:

My son recently went to a girl's party - turning 9 - and it was a Murder Mystery Dinner Party. It was great fun. It was on a Friday night and the house was decorated to be the NYC Italian mafia restaurant. Everyone was told their role and how to dress up as in their invitation. (One girl was told to dress up as a drunk nun!) It was about 10 kids, 7 girls and 3 boys. One of them was the murderer and there were clues they had to figure out who it was - and of course they had a big Italian dinner. The kids loved it.

By Tunnia on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 11:15 am:

Both pizzas and calzones (basically a folded over pizza) are really easy for kids to make. We are making pizzas for dd's party. Anyway, here's what I'm going to get for the party:

*refridgerated pizza crust (Pilsbury or store brand will work and if you get the kind that rolls out in a rectangle you can cut it in half to make two smaller pizzas which I will do so each can make their own personal pizza)

*pizza quick sauce in a jar (Ragu or store brand)

*shredded mozzarella

*turkey pepperoni slices (less greasy than regular pepperoni, but you can use regular if you like)

You can let the girls form their own crust, put the sauce on the crust, sprinkle the mozzarella on top of the sauce, and put the pepperoni on top of the cheese (or they can just leave it cheese if they don't want pepperoni). For a calzone, you put the sauce and ingredients on one half of the crust and then fold the bare half over the topping half. Take a fork and crimp the edges, bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Oh, and spray their hands with a little olive oil to make working with the dough easier. I think some stores do carry kits, but I usually just get use the refridgerated crust and jar sauce and whatever toppings we want when we make them as a family. I have used Joe Corbi's pizza kits before but I think you can only get Joe Corbi's from a fundraiser.

Your dd shares a birthday week with both my dk's and my brother. My dd's is Apr 5th, my ds's is Apr 7th, and my brother's is Apr 10th. It's a busy week for us.

By Vicki on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 11:20 am:

My dd (age 10) recently went to a slumber party that she had tons of fun at. The mom of the birthday girl had her sister and another friend come over and help her. The were told to come with clean hair. They did their hair all up, had someone there that put make up on the girls and one of the ladies gave them a mini manicure and polished their nails. They had regular curling irons, a spiral iron, a straightener iron etc. They took pictures and sent some home with dd. Her hair looked so cute!! Anyway, you could do that in a couple of hours on a smaller scale.. From the pics and dd's stories, they all loved it!

By Yjja123 on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 12:44 pm:

My daughters 9th birthday we watched Princess diaries one while making princess crowns.
We had pizza for lunch then headed to movie theater to watch part 2 of princess diaries. When we got home we had cake and ice cream. The girls wore their crowns to the movie theater and everyone told them how cute they looked. They told everyone they were princesses for the day and Jessica was the queen because it was her birthday. It was a fun, easy, and fairly inexpensive party.