Let it Snow: 10 Year Old Girls' Night In Birthday Party!

Thanks to Duncan Hines for sponsoring my writing. There's no limit to the baking possibilities, so grab your favorite Duncan Hines mix and Comstock or Wilderness fruit fillings and Bake On! www.duncanhines.com.

As I have said before, my careful family planning efforts never really worked out as I had hoped. What's that saying about hearing God laugh? I am sure I have him roaring on most days. I always intended on having three beautiful children and definitely one of each gender and all of them would have late spring or summer birthdays so we could have really fun birthday parties in the backyard. There would be balloons, and ice cream, and running around, squeals of delight and bare feet. But alas, my first two children {the ones who's timing I seemingly had control over} are cold weather babies. 

Over the years I have struggled to find the right mix of entertainment and creativity to plan parties both the kids and mom enjoy. Last week, SweetPea turned 10. It is beyond me how I have a TEN year old. We decided to have a Girls Night In sleepover complete with warm fuzzy socks, movies, popcorn and nail painting. With her birthday falling just as the true winter season kicks off, we decided to do a let it snow theme to the night some style and beauty. And then it was 60 degrees here in the should-be-frigid Northeast! 

At 4:00 pm on Saturday we welcomed 5 of her friends over had a fun filled night of activities. The big girls rented a movie, gave each other mani/pedi's, and hopped around to music in SweetPea's room. I also got each of them a pair of fleecy soft socks and we did a Yankee Sock Swap. None of them had done a Yankee Swap before and were so puzzled with the stealing of other people's item. In the end everyone got the color sock they wanted and they giggled their way upstairs.

Pizza and cake are requisite parts of a sleepover birthday party. SweetPea had a special request for a cake this year. She wanted an ice cream cake but wanted it in the flavors of Neapolitan ice cream. If you are not familiar with Neapolitan, it is vanilla, strawberry and chocolate layered in stripes in the container. A perfect choice for the indecisive child. But hum, how to translate that into a cake!?!
Then it hit me, vanilla flavored cake with chocolate and strawberry ice cream layers. 

And then as if Duncan Hines could read my mind, I was asked to use one of their products for a holiday themed Girls Night In party. 

Perfect timing people. Perfect timing!

The perfect part of all this is that I was really running out of time to prepare the whole party. I was offered a photog gig at the end of last week too so time was scarce. Cake mix and prepared frosting was definitely going to save me. I ran out and grabbed a box of Duncan Hines' butter yellow cake, some vanilla frosting and some glaze which I had never seen before. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to frost the ice cream cake and ideally wanted it to look frosty and snowy. In the end I was able to use the glaze to get a melting snow/ice look to the cake and SweetPea LOVED it.

Remember to check out Duncan Hines' website www.duncanhines.com to find some great recipes for your holiday get-together! I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective.