When the boys are away the girls will play

AJ is my party girl.  She wants to have parties all the time.  She went to a friend's birthday party the end of May that had a Summer theme and loved it so she kept asking if she could have a party at our house to celebrate Summer.  I complied since we are going to be gone for a good chunk of the Summer and thought it would be nice for her to have her friends over before we head off.  We decided that the best time to do it would be while AP was at Scout camp.  She handed out invitations the last day of school.  For the invites we upcycled mini water bottles.  I sprayed the tops with tan and gray spray paint (going for a cork effect) and wrapped hemp around the middle where the paper had been.  We used my starfish punch and added a little sand and seashells to the rolled up invitation inside the bottles.

We did an ice cream bar.  Here it is minus all the fixings.  It was the biggest hit.  I mean who doesn't love ice cream and topping galore?  It's definitely one of my favorite desserts.

Slip n' slide.  I didn't get any action shots because by the time I had a chance to get the camera they were off to the next thing...

Enjoying the sun and cooling off with the ice cream

Katie came about half-way through and got right in with the girls, jumping on the tramp and helping out with the dance contest.

Dance, Dance, party!  They had a dance competition at the aforementioned birthday party which was a big hit, so they were all set on doing one here.  They took turns being dancers and judges.  Reminded me a little of the "queen contests" my friends and I did at that age...

D had the best seat in the house, ha, ha.

We were going to build sand castles too, but the girls were busy enough entertaining themselves we didn't need to and D and Asher were the only ones really interested in the sand anyway (you know how boys are).  Gotta love that sticky, sandy, ice cream face.