You're Invited...

...and here is your invitation
to Ryan's 18th Birthday/Graduation Party:



It was a partly cloudy day (great for pictures)
when I woke up Saturday morning at the crack of dawn.
I had been furiously cleaning the house,
making party food and decorations for the past 48 hours straight.
I was inspired by this photo on marthastewart.com site:



I loved how the black & white photos were in the shape of a number,
I could do this...riiiight?
What I didn't realize was how long the process would take.
I have 20 photo albums with at least 600 photos in each.
Plus add the 3000+ photos still not printed out from my computer.
600 X 20 + 3000 = 15,000 photos to sort through.
Then editing, resizing and formatting to black & white
of my favorite 100 photos and then
uploaded to my local CVS store for one hour printing.
(If you have never printed out photos from there before,
I am here to tell you that they came out GREAT!)
I then added a white cardstock border to each photo
so it stood out a little more.
Anyway, I was very happy with the end result.
The party was outdoors so I taped all the photos
to the garage door in the shape of an 18.
Here is the 1:



And the 8:



And the finished product with the birthday girl:



I wanted to do a photobooth, so on the other garage door
I purchased some gray houndstooth material as a backdrop.
I also bought a whiteboard and two chalkboards
for guests to write a message to Ryan
and I would make a collage for her to hang in her dorm room.
I got some great shots of everyone!
They ranged from sweet to sad to funny to heart-warming.
Here is just a sampling:























At the party, there were cute little boys



and there were cute big boys



as well as cute girls with their cute boys



There was a double-dutch jump rope contest



and games like Ladderball and Kan Jam (before my #3 climbed into it)



The food was delicious, to look at as well as eat,
like this beautiful watermelon basket carved by my sister Karin:



And look at this lovely cake we had ordered:



and the fixin's for the ice cream sundaes



I made simple vases for the tables



and I even made sure to get one semi-decent family photo



and thankfully the rain stayed away until nightime
just as the party was coming to an end



so hopefully all this girl's wishes will come true!



I know I have all your good thoughts and wishes
for a healthy and happy year ahead for my Ryan.
Thank you for coming to her party!
Did you have a good time? ;)
-Jody