Picture perfect.

Apparently this year Juliana will be celebrating her birthday for weeks.

First there was the early birthday celebration with Grandma and Grandpa when they were here visiting at Halloween.

Then we celebrated on her real birthday.

Yesterday she had her friend birthday party - ten friends over for a scrapbooking party. We started planning over a month ago when she first got the idea.  The first thing that I did, of course, was call my mother - Queen of Scrapbooking Land - to find out which weekend she would be free because there was no way I wanted to do this one on my own. So, with a date chosen, it was up to Grandma and Juliana to come up with what the girls could make.  Juliana settled on creating photo albums (she had made a mini-version when Grandma took her to a scrapbooking workshop in the summer) so over Thanksgiving weekend they picked out the paper and some embellishments and then Grandma made them into 11 individual kits for the girls.  

But what to do about the photos?  In a moment of weakness, I agreed to a pre-party which we held last Monday afterschool. It's an understatement to say that the girls had a blast. I provided the sunglasses, the boas, a microphone, some music and the photographer (me) and they did all the rest.  

Almost 200 photos later - we came up with lots of stuff like this:

With the kits ready to go, the photos printed and ready to share, the cupcakes made, and Peter on top of the make-your-own-pizza lunch, there was nothing to do but wait for the kids to arrive.  

Well, arrive they did.  The pizzas were a success.  The game of charades that we played while waiting for the pizza to cook was a success.  And the photo albums?  Big time success.  Those girls gathered 'round the 2 tables gluing, sticking, taping, tying, giggling and sharing for over an hour.  My mom and I were there to help out when they needed it but at one point we looked at each other in disbelief because it was so darned quiet.  Eleven girls at a birthday party and you could almost hear a pin drop.  

The time just flew by.....we didn't need to break out the karaoke machine and we barely had time to fit a round of Happy Birthday in before the parents began to arrive at the door.

This is the birthday that just keeps on giving.  But any excuse for cake, though, right?