All American Girl

Meredith loves to come up with her own party themes.  She is creative and sweet and companionable.  She is fun to hang out with and always has lots of ideas and contributions to conversation.  She has become a voracious reader of fantasy and sci-fi.  I love the young woman she is becoming. 

Both my July birthday girls wanted very small friends parties this year.  The smallness factor, coupled with the fact that they are getting older, made for the easiest birthday parties I have ever thrown.  Meredith wanted an All-American theme.  She has always loved that her birthday (July 7) is close to America's birthday. 

Talk about easy.  All you have to do is go to the dollar store in late June and you have all your All-American party decorations!

Meredith loves raspberries. We went to Costco and bought a couple large packs of raspberries.  Then we made Ina Garten's flag cake with lots of cream cheese frosting.  Delish!

Nine year old girls rock!  They probably could have done this whole party by themselves.  I was there simply as the photographer.  Life has gotten easier (but I still have little boy parties to throw, so I'm not out of the woods yet)! 

The biggest hit of the party was this drink.  You take liquids with different sugar contents, and if you pour them slowly over ice, the colors stay separated.  The girls loved this so much.  I will definitely do this again!  I couldn't find the white drink--none of the gas stations where I normally see pina colada SoBe had it when I checked.  This drink is made with cran-raspberry juice and blue Gatorade.  

Meredith's snow cone maker from Aunt Christy has been put in constant use since we got it. Of course, we stocked up on Red and Blue colored flavors.  

Meredith makes these snow cones herself.  Every family should have a nine year old girl like her!

The only real "game" we played was Capture the American Flag in the backyard.  This was Meredith's idea. 

Movie time!

Doughnut time!

My oldest and youngest.