Happy 9th birthday to my sweet little angel, Cadence. This year she wanted to have a BACKWARDS BIRTHDAY PARTY with all her friends. That proved to be a little harder than your standard princess party which is what she always wants so I had to put my thinking cap on & come up with something creative. The invites were upside down & backwards. They opened from the left side & all the writing was mirrored so you could only read it in the mirror. All the info, date, time, etc. was on the outside of the card, & the "You're Invited" part was on the inside with an upside down cake. VERY CONFUSING, but cute. I baked several pretty pink cupcakes, frosted them, added sprinkles, & then turned them upside down on their plates with candles coming out the BOTTOM of the cupcake liner. Then I made THIS MONSTER. ha ha ha. I couldn't possibly do it with cake; it would have crumbled into a million pieces. So I made it out of Rice Krispie treats & fondant. It's not the prettiest cake I've ever done, but it served it's purpose & Cadence LOVED it which was what was most important to me. So here is her UPSIDE DOWN CAKE. The decor turned out WAY CUTE. I hung several balloons from the ceiling (upside down of course), & then I set up the eating area UNDER the table. We used PILLOWS to sit on instead of chairs & everything was done up cute in pink & white. Cadence helped me put together the goodie bags. The color theme was pink & white so everything inside was pink or white. There were all sorts of pretty candies including some sugar crystal candy in the white bags, & there were sunglasses, lip glosses, nail polish, & lots of fun girly things in the pink one. Cadence was SO EXCITED for her backwards party to begin. . . All the kids (minus baby who was taking a nap) put their clothes on backwards. They thought it was SO FUNNY. Even Daddy put his clothes on backwards. And yes, my clothes were backwards too. Do you know how hard it is to button up pants backwards? I was surprised at how difficult it was. Me & my little birthday girl. Cadence waited ever so patiently for her guests to arrive. Then she made sure to say "Good-bye" as they each arrived on our doorstep. The first thing we did was dig into cake & ice cream. After all, this is a BACKWARDS PARTY. We all sang "You to Birthday, Happy" to Cadence. Then she blew out her candle. Then we dug into our fun cupcakes. The kids loved eating the sugar FIRST instead of LAST. After overdosing on sugary goodness, we had the girls sit down on the floor for a Backwards Puzzle Race. Basically, they put together puzzles upside down as fast as they could. It was SO HARD. They were laughing the whole time. After doing puzzles, we had each girl draw a signed birthday portrait of Cadence BLINDFOLDED. Everybody was laughing SO HARD at the silly pictures they could hardly breathe. Cadence was laughing hardest because they were drawing her with blue, purple, & green hair. All the faces looked Picaso-ish & their bodies were no where near the head. It was a fun activity for everyone. After lots of laughter & smiles, we headed back to our "table on the floor" for a BACKWARDS DINNER. We ate Pizza Sandwiches, Apple Fries with Peanut Butter Ketchup, Backwards Hot-Dogs, & upside down Sodas. The backwards hot-dogs were fun. Just put the hot-dogs on the OUTSIDE of the bun. It makes a MESS, but it's hilarious. Also, when you stab a hole in the bottom of a soda can, it EXPLODES. (We didn't know that.) But it was still fun. The girls loved drinking out of the bottom of the cans. I think the favorite activity of the night was the BACKWARDS PINATA. All of the candy was on the OUTSIDE of the piñata. They got a kick out of that. (It's just taped on so it will fall off easily when it's hit.) Trek held it up with a mop pole, then we blindfolded the kids BACKWARDS & made them hold the WRONG SIDE of the bat. The best part? Trek made sure the PINATA HIT THEM a few times before they could hit it. (ha ha ha) After the piñata, we had another fun game in store. For a NORMAL birthday party, the guests give the birthday girl presents. Well, at this BACKWARDS PARTY, Cadence gave each of her guests a PRESENT. We put the numbers 1-10 in a shoe (not a hat because it's backwards). Each girl drew a number. Whoever drew the #10 got to pick her present first. Then #9 got to choose whether to steal the first girls gift or open her own & so forth until #1 got to steal from anyone or open her own. They LOVED this. I think they were having more fun stealing from each other than opening their own thing. Girls are SO funny. It turned out to be a lot of fun. We all had a lot of fun wearing our clothes backwards, eating crazy things, & just being silly. The night ended with the REAL PRESENTS. I was going to make Cadence open the gifts with her feet, but there wasn't enough time left & I wanted to make sure everyone got to see the presents opened. She got a lot of fun craft things from her friends. They know her well. Everything was perfect for her. We had a blast! Happy Birthday my sweet little Angel Girl. I hope your day was as WONDERFUL as you are.