Slumber Party!

Regan went to an old fashion slumber party Friday night for her BFF's(Brooke's) 11th birthday party. I was the photographer so I stayed until 10pm and went back in the morning to help. What a great time these girls had.Nine girls running around playing games I hadn't played since I was a young! flashlight tag, hula hoop contest(Regan did almost 509 twirls!), egg on a spoon race, egg toss,& volleyball. And what would a party be without food-JUNK food!!_they had pizza,cake,soda's,they made smores by a camp fire , sang camp fire songs and took turns making up scary stories!! By the end of the night they got in their jammies layed out their sleeping bags and watched a movie and told stories until one by one fell asleep. It was beautiful-

This is such a great age for girls. An age where they are not worried yet about the things that we as women put on ourselves.They can eat cake, smores and drink grape soda so that they may have the biggest burp and never once did I hear one of them say, is this gonna make me fat? No- they were enjoying each other, laughing,being silly and light hearted with no worries of am I wearing the right outfit, should I say this or that,does my hair and make-up look nice? They were just being 10 & 11 year olds, not judging each other,encouraging one another,excited and happy to see the birthday girl open yet another webkinz! When one got hurt or was getting anxious for her mother they were not whispering behind her back but hugging her and telling her its gonna be all right,you can sleep next to me. They weren't worried about shaving their legs, periods,boys, hair,sex, or clothes they were just little girls enjoying life! How I wish I could put this time in a bottle for Regan and save it for her, because I know all too soon this time in her life will be over-How does this happen I wonder? How do we go from being so sweet and innocent and accepting of one another as women to being compettive,gossipy,judging one another. Maybe it is because we stop having slumber parties.We get so caught up with life and being an adult that we forget that at the heart of each of us is a little girl that wants to hang with her girlfriends, paint each other's toes,play games, laugh loudly, love carelessly, and not worry that if I eat that tenth piece of chocolate ,Will my pants zip tommorrow? who cares!

I hope my daughter has many slumber parties and goes to many more, I hope she continues to love herself but more importanlty loves others. I hope she has many best girl friends that she stays up all night and whispers with,I hope she never judges someone by their waistline,but that she measures her friends by their honesty and integrity. I never realized how much we can learn from a slumber party, an innocent event that has been around for years, its where it begins for us little girls and if we can be reminded for a short time of where it can lead. As women if we could continue to join together, supporting one another, encouring each other,hugging the hurts of life away then maybe just maybe our daughters will be better, stronger ,confident women because of the examples that we set.

I am having another slumber party, yes Regan wants one for her birthday next month, but that won't be the only one,I am going to invite all of my girlfriends over for a slumber party next month. We are going to stay up all night, eat junk food,play games,laugh get in our jammies and for one night be little girls again-and I just might might make this a tradition so that we always remember that life is really fun-but its more fun with your girlfriends!