Folks, it's official: Claire and I throw a damn good party.
This is the third year in a row that we've taken advantage of our birthdays being just nine days apart to throw a joint celebration, and it's become one of the highlights of my February, every year! This year, we reserved the SkyClub in my building and decided that 26 is officially old enough to party with your parents...so we invited some very special adults to join the fun!
Friends, best decision we could possibly have made. I owe an enormous thank you to my amazing mom, who went above and beyond to make the night as much of a success as it was. She bought a giant cake from Farmington Bakery, my all-time favorite:
...picked up dozens of individually-wrapped candies and major balloons to add to the giant space...
and brought the party in every way imaginable.
I had so much fun planning for the night and getting things together! I spent about an hour the day before the party making the Jell-o shots that were scattered on the table above...Kaitlin and I made them for last year's Claire-Lizzie birthday bash and they were a hit, so this year I decided to repeat. The recipe I picked, however, made 140 shots.
Yikes. Even more yikes-worthy: there were none left at the end of the party, and I'm pretty sure I took at least 20. Good thing they weren't strong...because I wasn't the only one! My mom and Mike's mom had way too much fun with them, too, and a friendship was born in a big way.
We got incredibly lucky that the space was as decorated-up as it was, because it turns out the SkyClub had been double-booked! The other group that had reserved it was NOT pleased with our awesome event-planning, since it made it nearly impossible for them to kick us out. In a fit of twenty-something rage, one of the guys actually made the comment, "It's not like they can move their party, it's like Adult Disneyland up there!" I'll take THAT as a compliment, thank-you-very-much.
While I had the best intentions of taking dozens of pictures, we ended up having too much fun mingling, playing pool, and introducing everyone to our totally awesome parents (and godparents!) to do so. I actually have more pictures of the "grown-ups" than I do of my friends! Click through the gallery, below, for some of the highlights of the night. Already looking forward to one-upping this one in 2016 for the big 2-7!
