Talena's Birthday Party!

So what do you do when one of your best friends is having her golden birthday (when you turn the age of the date of your birth) and she confides that she would like a celebration, but doesn't want to be too much of the center of attention, she likes small groups of people, but has lots of friends.  Paradox, yes.  This is what I did, I called our creative mutual friends Melina, Ashley and Annie and asked for help.  Together we came up with the most brilliant idea.  We planned a progressive surprise party for our dear friend Talena.  What is a progressive surprise party, you may ask?  I will tell you.

First you invite your best bud over for dinner on her birthday.  Without her knowing, you have a basket with the same amount of gifts of the age she is turning all wrapped, numbered and ready to go.  Each gift is a dollar store treasure with a typed up punny reason of why you love your friend.  (Example:  A bag of peanut M&M's included with a paper that reads: "Reason #__ Why We Love Talena...She's sweet and a little nutty."  You get the idea.) You then secretly place it on your front porch when she isn't looking.  Then on 15 minute intervals you have a friend or two arrive, grab the next numbered gift and deliver it to your unexpecting friend. By the end of the evening you have a happy friend feeling adored, a bunch of adoring friends and a lot of cake to eat.  

As you can see, the evening was a success!  I was so pleased how it turned out, even though I was running behind time and frosted the cake in the middle of the party.  Oh well.  Talena seemed really grateful and happy and that is what is most important.

Food and decorations:

All the presents.  Melina and I had a fabulous time coming up with the
puns.  We thought we were so clever.

The layered cake.  I found it is way easier to frost them like this instead
of stacking the layers.  Plus, it looks so pretty.

I got the idea for this little snacks here.  I used caramel filled Hershey kisses,
but someone at the party told me Rolos work a lot better. 

The birthday banner!  I've been wanting to make one of these for awhile.  

Special thanks to Danny who cut out half of the banner flags for me

while I wrapped presents.

The Party!

The princess of the party.

Our first friends to arrive at the party.  Dave and Melina called in via

video chat.  It was so fun talking to them!

More friends arrived!

Getting ready to blow out the candles.  We had some friends who 

sampled the cake a little early, haha.

The audience for blowing out the candles.

Me and Talena Balena

Opening more gifts, hooray!
...
Well that's a wrap. (hehe)