Rachel's Sweet Sixteen

Rachel celebrated her sweet sixteen birthday just days before Thanksgiving. Our kids have been promised parties at certain big birthdays and 16 is one of them. So, I had to take the plunge, and with a great idea from Auntie Em, we planned a Murder Mystery Dinner Party.

 We bought a murder mystery dinner package online that told us just what to do. We set the party up in stages with appetizers, salad, main course, and dessert. This helped everyone to have plenty of opportunity to talk to other guests and accomplish their assigned tasks so the murder could take place and then be solved.

With two parties back-to-back (Thanksgiving/50th anniversary for my in-laws and this birthday party) I simplified by using a lot of the same decorating technics for both events! And, my sister, who invented the idea of the murder mystery, volunteered to help me pull the party off -- couldn't have done it on my own!

 

The party began with appetizers, provided by Auntie Em! Gorgeous!

 After the appetizers everyone moved to the front room for their sit down dinner (Emily and I served).

After the murder everyone congregated in the dining room for dessert -- Rachel requested mini pies instead of cake.

I'm sure you recognize my favors from the Thanksgiving photos. :)

Here are the girls mingling after their arrival. It was wonderful to see so many people come dressed up in costume!!!!

Here's the group! It really was terrific fun and I would love to do this again for an adult gathering although hosting something like this is SO much easier when you are only responsible for cooking and serving the food and don't have to also sit down and eat and interact.

The theme for the murder mystery was modern day fairy tale so there were modern takes on Prince Charming, Snow White, Cinderella, etc.

Rachel did a wonderful job of keeping the party going along the script. She elected to be "Prince Charming."

Here are the girls enjoying their salads and working on their secret tasks.

I loved "Gram's" outfit!!! Couldn't get over it!

Here are two sisters doing some sort of secret bribing or exchange of information.

The lights all went out at one point and the murder happened! SCREAMS!!

After some detective work the mystery was solved! Then there were prizes for best costume, best actor, and person with the most money leftover at the end.

On Sunday Grandma came over with the two cousins whom she was babysitting for the weekend. YAY! We enjoyed more birthday celebration and present opening.

And there were pies left to enjoy!!!!!

 A little help from cousin Arthur.

Rachel had to go to school on her real birthday but I think the festivities of the weekend made up for that plus the fact that she could use some of her birthday presents to get Starbucks on the way to school. :)

Happy sixteenth birthday Rachel!!!