Emersyn is turning twelve – how can that be? Thursday night after school, Emersyn decorated her cake with sprinkles.

Then, we decorated the living room. I had looked at the Holiday House in Puxi for streamers, but there were none to find. I sent Mr. Nie to Party Pops in Jinqiao. He found a few at 10rmb ($1.50) for a small roll. Such a simple item to find back home, but a challenge in Shanghai. The girls had fun putting the decorations up for the party.

Uncle Andy hit every Justice store in the Bay Area looking for pajama’s for the birthday parties. One store recognized him when he came back for more – the sleep over Uncle. He found pj’s sets on sale. Justice always has 40% off sales, but these were already marked down with an additional 40% off. Andy was able to get them for about $8 a set from the original price tag of $35 – score! Emersyn and I rolled the pj’s and tagged them for each girl.

Andy also found these fun socks. None of the socks are a match – the new theme in socks which is good if you lose one!

After spending the afternoon at school for Splash Day with Eleri, it was time to pick up the girls for the birthday fun. I did a kid swap with Lisa, Anna’s Mom. Hayden, Anna’s big sister, is one of Emersyn’s friends. Lisa was taking Eleri for a sleepover – everyone was thrilled with this arrangement. Eleri was more than thrilled to go to Anna’s house. Emersyn was more than thrilled to have Eleri gone for her party.

Emersyn is having 12 girls (including herself) for her 12th birthday. Fatih’s driver is helping me with transportation – 6 girls to a van. We piled into the vans to drive around the corner to get slushies. The kids love the slushies. It did take a bit of time to make 12 slushies – we made the line long on a Friday night!

When we got home, the girls were given a necklace to wear. They were playing a game with the necklaces. Emersyn picked 4 words they couldn’t say. If they said the word and someone heard it, they could take one necklace. The kids were having fun and were very creative. They used the Chinese word of “wo” for “I”. They tried using poor grammar by saying “me would like…”. The game ended at 6:30. Emersyn won with the most necklaces. Then, the necklaces were put into a basket for each girl to pick one to take home.

They decided to go out in the gardens for some play. At one point, I could see them rolling down the hills – being little kids. When they came in, they reported Avery rolled in poop! No problem as i can wash her clothes to be ready in the morning. The girls came up to put on their new pajamas!

Hayden, Emersyn, Annabel, Isabel, Anna, Michelle, Elyssa & Avery
Josie, Taylor, Kaitlin & Ruth

We order 12 pizzas from across the street, our favorite pizza – La Casbah. The pizzas are large individual sizes. The smoked chicken is a house favorite. The girls all seemed to love the pizza, but Elyssa. But, she won’t go hungry as there are plenty chips, crackers and sweets to eat. The girls enjoyed their pizza with a movie.

When the movie finished, it was time for cake!

And ice cream sundaes with chocolate sauce, m&m’s and oreos. We always have the good homemade ice cream from the butcher. It is the real stuff – with probably more calories than we want to know. However, after eating this ice cream, any store bought ice cream doesn’t “hold a candle”.

Emersyn opened her presents with excitement. Now that they are pre-teens, she received many gifts from Sephora in bath gels, perfumes and nail polish.

Next, the girls picked their socks from the basket.

Taylor, Ruth & Emersyn

Now, it was time for Jim and I to disappear into the bedroom. Emersyn had the game “Truth or Dare” in her stocking from Santa. It is from Justice, a pre-teen store. I told Emersyn to use common sense and have fun. The dares were things like screaming the pledge of alliance – which they did on the balcony. Someone had to eat a spoonful of ketchup. Kaitlin had to chew “abc” gum. The next morning when they were telling me, I had to ask what was “abc” gum – already been chewed! We could hear them giggling and laughing in the bedroom. When they finished their game, we set up the sleeping arrangements. We have two blow-up mattresses (one with a slow leak). I borrowed two mattresses from Faith. The mattresses took care of 8 girls. That left a girl on the sofa, two girls on the Thai pillows and Ruth decided to sleep in the chair – 12 girls all on soft surfaces – my job was done! We left the girls to watch movies and talk. They went to bed a various time based on who feel asleep.

Jim took Roxi to the doggy play date at 8:00am. The girls didn’t begin to stir until after 9:00am. Jim made his famous crepes for the girls which they were all very impressed.

It was a very successful party AND we survived the TWEVLE girls. They were really pretty easy. Lisa brought Eleri home when she picked up Hayden which made life easy!

Birthday recap:
Emersyn’s Sleepover Birthday Party