This article is a review of my experience with Southern Sleepovers.
On Friday night, we flipped our house upside down and celebrated Hadley’s 6th birthday, sleepover style!
Though Jamie and I really enjoy entertaining, we’ve never hosted a big birthday party for our girls at our home before. In the past, we’ve leaned more toward the route of paying for everything up front and just showing up at a facility (like the swimming birthday party last year at the YMCA). But when Missy from Southern Sleepovers Alabama contacted me about potentially hosting a sleepover birthday party for one of our daughters down the road, I was intrigued.
I took one look at her Instagram account and emailed her back with a big, fat YES. I knew this would be absolutely perfect for Hadley’s sixth birthday party!
Fast forward a few months and it was birthday party day!
Half Sleepover Birthday Party
Since this party was for a bunch of kindergarteners, we knew off the bat that an actual sleepover wasn’t our jam with kiddos this young. So we opted for a “half” sleepover, which basically meant we’d do all of the traditional sleepover party things but send all of the party guests on their merry way no later than 9 p.m. 😉
On Friday morning, Jamie and I spent five minutes moving the living room furniture into our dining room area so that Missy had plenty of room to set up eight tents.
At 10 a.m. she showed up to do her thing. She brought
- the tents
- mattresses + sheets
- precious balloon arch over the two tents
- stringed lights
- pom-pom strands
- snack trays
- lanterns
- a disco ball
- and the sweet little set-up you see below with the throw pillows.
I tried to stay out of her way as she set up, but every time I poked my head in I couldn’t help myself from squealing with joy. Based off of her Instagram feed, I knew these tents would be adorable, but my goodness – seeing them all set up in my home for my daughter and her friends got me all kinds of giddy!
Southern Sleepovers To The Rescue
About two weeks ago, I realized that I better get my booty in gear and figure out what the agenda for the party would look like! I missed the boat entirely with sending out paper invitations, so a quick Facebook invitation did the trick this time around. 🙂
So I sat up late one night and mapped it all out. Pinterest helped me churn out some ideas real quick. 😉 My amazon orders prove that I didn’t order a thing for this party until eight days prior. Whew, buddy!
My thoughts were…
… we’d have a popcorn bar with some kind of balloon decor (was supposed to be an arch but a horizontal line was what we got on party day, haha!)…
…some mantle decor…
…delivery pizza and lemonade for dinner followed by a delicious Publix cake.
We’d playing a wild game of “Pin the horn on the unicorn”…
… followed by some pillowcase decorating.
We’d opened presents (why is this part so darn chaotic every birthday party? LOL)…
… and have some wild disco dance parties to kids songs on YouTube. (Look at Grandma getting in on the action playing London Bridges with the girls!)
I wasn’t sure how much the girls would actually hang out in their tents since we’d have so much activity going on, but they absolutely loved them and spent as much time in them as they could. All throughout the night I’d see at least three or four girls lounging in their tents eating, bouncing, or laughing with a buddy. It was the sweetest!!
And these two (err, three!) DeSpain girls absolutely loved this party.
Jillian was really just in it for the disco ball. Baby catnip, for sure!
For the popcorn bar, I popped about 12 bags of popcorn about an hour ahead of time and threw it all in a galvanized bucket with nearby scoop. For the toppings, I saved money and stole a bunch of candy from the girls’ Halloween buckets and called it good. (This move was either mean or smart. I think smart since they’d end up eating it anyway!)
And all night long these girls bopped around having themselves a ball, and it made me so happy.
We had eight tents and 11 attendees. Some girls doubled up in the tents since they wouldn’t be spending the night anyway. Most girls liked having a buddy to hang in the tents with, so this totally worked out! (The chalkboard signs were also supplied by Southern Sleepovers Alabama.)
I am friends with all of the moms of the attendees, so I told them that they were welcome to either stay and linger among the chaos or they could go enjoy their Friday night and come back some time around 8. About five or so moms stayed around, and I made sure to have some adult munchies for us, since this felt kind of like a little hang out for us as moms too. 😉 This charcuterie board was ordered from and delivered by CuredHSV and was scrumptious! We hung around the kitchen island nibbling on it all night.
These moms all have a five or six year old daughter (minus my best friend Amberlee – blonde in the center) and walking through this season of parenting a kindergarten for the first time is so much easier and more fun with them as my friends. I adore every woman in this picture!
And as for Amberlee, she was so precious and joined us just for fun so that she could help me where she could. She’s eight months pregnant with their third child (and first girl!), but she stood on her feet all night long and helped where she could without me saying a word.
And this is what our party princess looked like the next morning. Heeeeeey, bed head! She woke up and couldn’t wait to dive into her gifts. 10 out of 10 moms would recommend having nothing on the calendar the day after a birthday party, because playing with gifts is all kids want to do anyway. It was a perfect Saturday morning because the girls played hard with Hadley’s new toys (we had a biiiiiig talk about not fighting over toys before we opened any gifts because Mama was not in the mood to play referee all day over everything Hadley got), I snuggled Jillian with the fire roaring, and Jamie got in a good workout in the form of an Army PT test.
Two more MVPs from the party: my mom and my mother-in-law. I had asked them weeks ago if they’d go ahead and block off the day for me and be available to help with party needs. They were both fantastic, and their helping hands with not only party needs but also Jillian so that I could focus on getting things together was crucial. They took stress off of me and allowed me to focus on what I needed to to pull off a good time.
Finally, how cute is this yard decor? My mother-in-law arranged this as a surprised for Hadley, and it turned out so cute and was very impressive! It was done by Card My Yard. 🙂
This party was a total blast, and I am crossing every finger and toe that Hadley has some decent memories from this fun night. If not, we’ll have this blog post to look back on. 🙂
Southern Sleepovers Alabama
If you have a business Instagram account, you are able to see how many people are clicking on the tags within your stories. I was DUMBFOUNDED to see that the handle @southernsleepoversalabama was clicked on by over 85% of the people who viewed my stories. WHAT! I have NEVER had a tag that nearly every single viewer engaged with. If you loved this party idea and want to hire Southern Sleepovers for your loved one’s next birthday party, get in touch with them ASAP as they book up fast! They are currently available in Chattanooga, Nashville, and north Alabama.
Free Tent Deal
If you are in north Alabama and planning to book a party, here’s a deal you don’t want to miss. If you book between now and January 31st, 2020 for a party any time in 2020, you will receive a complimentary tent. So if you pay for six tents, Southern Sleepovers will throw in a 7th tent complimentary. Just mention the deal and that you read about it on my blog.
Booking
Ready to book a sleepover party? Head on over to Southern Sleepovers website, select either Nashville, Chattanooga, or Alabama, and get set up!
Sleepover Birthday Party Sources
White dishes (that held toppings)
Balloon kit (that hung above popcorn bar) <—- I CANNOT believe it was so easy and fast to make this thing. Literally took 10 minutes if you have the electric balloon machine below.
Electric balloon machine (this was the coolest and easiest thing EVER! I’m soooooo glad I bought this!)
Pin the horn on the unicorn game
Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to two little girls (ages 5 and 2) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo
