Little Miss World Pageant 2010

I must apologize in advance for those mother's who have been anxiously awaiting lots of pictures from this event. We had a fabulous professional photographer come (Scot's brother) and photograph the whole event. I spent the whole time making sure things ran smoothly, so I feel badly that I didn't take more pictures myself. It was a lot crazy, most of the time. But since he took about 600 pictures, there will plenty to pick from. I will have to do another post with those later. But for now I just want to get my thoughts down, while they are still fresh. I did include the few pictures I did take.
When my sisters were about Emma's age, my mom and I came up with this party idea. So we gave each of them a Miss Universe pageant for one of their birthday parties. They were tons of fun. Well, about a year ago I got to thinking about it, and I decided that if we gave one for my sisters, how much fun would it be to do for my own daughter. (I should have asked my mom before hand how much harder it was to do it as a parent, than as a teenager.) So this party has been in the works for more than a year. And of course I have a disease (I think I inherited it from my mother) I really like to make birthday parties a big deal. So I just kept getting more and more ideas and it just kept getting more and more expensive. The day of I was frantic because I had forgotten to finish a few things and it was getting down to the wire. But I pulled them all off at the last minute. Also I had such great helpers!! I could not have done this without them!! I had originally told Annaliese that since I had gotten a bunch of my friends to help with her party, she should do the same for me. She took the responsibility very seriously. Which I appreciated, but also felt bad about. Because when some of her friends were a little flaky (they are high school girls) and a couple dropped out at the last minute, she felt terrible. I was so grateful to her and to the two friends of hers that gave up their Friday night to help me out. I was also so grateful to my own mother for rearranging her schedule to fit my in to help out at the most crucial parts. And to my mother in law that just showed up to help where she was needed. And to fabulous sister in laws who gave up their time in very busy schedules to help out. And to a friend of mine, who is also the mom of one of Emma friends, for not only giving up her night, but for coming up with ways to calm down the girls in the inbetween waiting times. Thanks so much to all of you!! And an extra big thank you to Jon, our photographer or the paparatzzi as the girls called him, for going above and beyond. I can't wait to see the pictures!
Ok, so that was kind of a run on paragraph, but I truly am so grateful for all of the amazing people who helped.
When we sent out the invitations, Emma picked a country for each of the girls to represent. Some of them were really random, but I told her she needed every continent except Antartica represented. She picked Germany for herself, and England for Lucy. We also had America, Egypt, Canada, Argentina, Peru, Thailand, Philippines, France, Argentina, and Romania. There were 12 adorable girls at the party, they were crazy, and noisy, but we had a great time. I was thinking I was a little crazy a few times for inviting so many girls, but overall it was a lot of fun to have a larger group for the pageant.
We started out giving each girl her sash with the "Miss .... " on it when they arrived and directing them to the dressing room. (We actually used all the rooms for changing, but they kept all their stuff in Emma and Lucy's room.)

It was so cute to see all their stuff lined up and ready to go for the pageant.

But first it was off to hair, make-up, nails and pedicures.

We rotated the girls through each station. So they all got a chance to have everything done. They were all so funny about their make-up. I decided not to go too heavy duty, since they are still younger. So they got eye shadow, blush, and lip gloss. We did have some one put it on in the begining, but they wanted to keep reapplying, especially lip gloss for fun. In fact between every outfit change they had to reapply.
For pedicures, each of the girls got to soak in the foot spa, while awaiting their turns. They my mom, expert pedicurist would prepare their feet, with a little massage, while one of Annaliese's friends painted them with the color of choice.
Hair was the station that took the longest. It was cute to see the differences between the girls, some would come in knowing exactly what they wanted and others, would let them do whatever they wanted and some had some suggestions. But they all turned out so cute!
All the girls loved having their nails painted, especially picking the colors and hand massage.

When the girls were all "made up" they got to rotate through having a mine photo shoot, the interview portion, and dinner. The photo shoot was fun, and we really got to see a lot of personality. And some of the answers that the girls had for their interview were hilarious. They were all well prepared.

Next we had the pageant. We had created a runway in our family room. There was country casual, swimsuit and evening gown competions. In the end we presented each of the girls with an award, a crown and a rose. They are all winners afterall.

Then we had presents and cake.

The party turned out so well, and I think the girls all had fun. Emma loved it! I think it was such a great age to do it, because the girls weren't too self conscious yet and they could just have a lot of fun. But as fun as it was I am glad it is over. It was a ton of work!