I was going back through my blogs recently and realized I didn't post or blog anything about Elijah's 16th birthday. I'm terrible!!! SO...I'm going to blog about it today and hope Elijah forgives me later! We have some pictures but we got more video than pictures. I'll share a few pics here.
First off, we kept the party planning under wraps. We didn't want Elijah to know anything about the party. In fact, Celeste (one of Elijah's best friends) and Elijah share the same birthday so she helped me out a lot by planning a "fake" party for the two of them to distract the birthday boy. And boy, did it work! (Thank you again, Celeste! You are awesome!)
About a month before the party, I started contacting Elijah's friends. Elijah's birthday is November 3 so we decided to have the party on October 30th and make it a Halloween costume party. The kids were really excited about this. Every week, when we took Elijah to dance on Thursdays, I would go to the Halloween store in Muncie and stock up on stuff. We were so excited and we knew as long as no one said anything, we would be able to pull it off. Sydney did slip up once and it was a doozy but we covered well and Elijah still didn't have any idea.
The day of the party, we knew we had to get Elijah out of the house so we could decorate the garage and get the food ready. The Albany Halloween parade was that night and we had told Elijah that Mom and Dad, Uncle Todd and Aunt Sue, Auntie Val and Uncle Randy and allll the kids were coming over to eat and then to walk up and go see the parade. BUT because of all the stuff we had to do, I wasn't going to have time to run to the store. Brooke "volunteered" to pick up Elijah and they went to get all the stuff. Little did he know the list I gave him of stuff to shop for was all the food for his party. Once he left, we had 2 hours to decorate, get everything ready and have the guests show up.
The garage looked great, the guests were dressed up and in place and then Elijah arrived. He walked into the garage and the look on his face was PRICELESS! He had NO idea and was absolutely thrilled. Chad and I had bought him a priest costume and had laid it out on his bed for him to wear so he could be dressed up with his friends. After the initial shock, Elijah and his friends walked uptown to the parade and then afterwards came back to eat, play games, open presents, and dance. They had a blast.
A highlight of the party was our gift to Elijah. We don't allow our kids to get cell phones until they turn 16. We just don't feel like there's a reason for them to have one earlier than that. Two weeks before the party, we ordered his phone, got him a ringtone, and charged it up for him. We delivered it to him at his party. He was SO excited. He and his friends had so much fun taking pictures and putting in their numbers into his phone and calling and texting each other.
It was a great night. We are proud of Elijah and wanted to celebrate his big birthday in a big way. Happy Birthday, Elijah! We love you so much!
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