Need a Party Idea?

[This is a little late, but I don't care.}

Gabriella's birthday was exactly two weeks (a fortnight, if you will) after Aurora was born. I had warned Gabba way in advance that her birthday was going to be low-key, with a postpartum mommy and a squishy new baby in the house. She was fine with that, just as long as she got to hang out with her besties and do fun stuff. Fanfare not required. What a trooper!

(She helped make the carrot cake (her choice), and did most of the food prep for the veggie-and-dip platter (also her choice). This young lady had all the details pinned down.)

The problem was coming up with a party-ish activity that required minimal oversight from me but delivered maximum girly fun. After a great deal of brainstorming (spread out over many, many days), Gabba and I settled on a tin foil fashion show.

It went like this:

The girls divided up into teams of two, and each team was given a brand-new roll of aluminum foil. One girl was the "designer" and one girl was the "fashion model". They had 10 minutes to create and build an outfit out of aluminum foil, and then model it the "judge". The judge had the timer going, and could use whatever points or grading system she wanted...it was totally arbitrary and capricious. 

We divided up the teams, picked the first judge, and set the timer. Hilarity ensued.

Each girl had a chance to be both designer and model, and at the end of each round, whomever was the time-keeper/judge exercised her opinion and crowned a top model. 

We switched up the teams and started the next round with a new set of duos and fresh rolls of aluminum foil.

It was fun to see what they came up with.

It was quite funny to see the trial-and-error of how to get the tin foil behave. There were a lot of wardrobe malfunctions. It was awesome.

There was no small amount of banter and trash talk, egged on shamelessly by the judge.

The girls figured out pretty quickly that none of the fashion creations were good for actual movement. Good thing we weren't planning on doing the limbo in these shiny outfits!

 Another round of designer/model teams in all their reflective glory!

By Round Three, they were really getting goofy: tails, horns...

...full, poofy ball gown skirts...

The ball gown was a spectacular failure, but that made it even funnier! The girls just laughed and laughed.  And then, when everyone had a turn to both design and model (and judge!), they wadded up all the aluminum foil, tossed it at each other, and jumped into the pile they made of shed and shredded outfits (It's amazing how big a pile you can make with five rolls of tin foil!) Later, they helped bag it all up, but we still found shiny little scraps around the living room for days...

Then, they went outside to jump on the trampoline...

...and bury each other in the leaves.

The party was indeed low-key. But the girls had a great time. And Gabba got to hang with her besties. The only party favor we sent home with her guests was a great, rather unique memory...and some tin foil hats. You know, for the alien invasion.

Happy Birthday, Gabriella!