{"id":2188,"date":"2012-01-24T23:00:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T04:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catchingfireflies.com\/blog\/?p=2188"},"modified":"2012-01-24T23:00:20","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T04:00:20","slug":"birthday-balloon-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/birthday-balloon-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"birthday balloon surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t say Tessa was overly subtle about us making a BIG deal about her 16th birthday, so the challenge was ON to make it a special one.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m happy to say Steve &amp; I were quite successful in throwing a fun &amp; memorable party for a dozen of high school aged kids (<em>not bad for jumping into parenthood starting with a 15 year old<\/em> ;-)\u00a0 &#8211; CHECK<\/p>\n<p>Tessa is also joining us for our week long New York trip starting this weekend which should be packed with ooohs, ahhs &amp; lots of shopping &#8211; CHECK<\/p>\n<p>On her actual birth-DAY, she woke up to crepe paper streamers on her door frame and a bathroom filled with oodles of balloons.\u00a0 Then we made her pancakes while she opened up presents from her mom &amp; dad back in Germany.\u00a0 She started her day with a BIG smile. -CHECK<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/balloon-room.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2189\" title=\"balloon room\" src=\"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/balloon-room.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/balloon-room.jpg 600w, http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/balloon-room-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I originally got the balloon idea from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehouseofsmiths.com\/2011\/11\/traditions-and-we-love-citrus-mason-jar.html\" target=\"_blank\">The House of Smiths<\/a> &amp; planned on filling her room while she was sleeping&#8230; however our cat, Tuesday was sleeping in Tessa&#8217;s bed &amp; proceeded to meow whenever I took 2 steps in her room ~ which lead to Tessa waking up &amp; gasping in shock :-)\u00a0 <em>This wasn&#8217;t the surprise I was going after<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>So the bathroom ended up as PLAN B<\/p>\n<p>This simple surprise could be fun for any occasion.\u00a0 But I must warn you, 25 balloons seems like a lot&#8230; but when you&#8217;re trying to cover a floor, you could always use more.\u00a0 I ended up adding our left over balloons from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/minute-to-win-it-party\" target=\"_blank\">minute to win it party<\/a> for a bigger effect.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #99cc00;\"><strong>Like seeing what\u2019s happening around my home?<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 Then sign up to receive these behind-the-scenes blog posts in your email inbox <\/strong><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/catchingfireflies.com\/blog\/get-the-latest-updates-in-your-inbox\/\"><strong>HERE<\/strong><\/a><strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"flaresmith\" class=\"feedflare\"><script src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~s\/http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/catchingfireflies\/TyNo?i=http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/birthday-balloon-surprise\/\" type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div><div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/birthday-balloon-surprise\/\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 944859;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t say Tessa was overly subtle about us making a BIG deal about her 16th birthday, so the challenge was ON to make it a special one. I&#8217;m happy to say Steve &amp; I were quite successful in throwing a fun &amp; memorable party for a dozen of high school aged kids (not bad for jumping into parenthood starting with a 15 year old ;-)\u00a0 &#8211; CHECK Tessa is also joining us for our week long New York trip starting this weekend which should be packed with ooohs, ahhs &amp; lots of shopping &#8211; CHECK On her actual birth-DAY, she woke up to crepe paper streamers on her door frame and a bathroom filled with oodles of balloons.\u00a0 Then we made her pancakes while she opened up presents from her mom &amp; dad back in Germany.\u00a0 She started her day with a BIG smile. -CHECK I originally got the balloon idea from The House of Smiths &amp; planned on filling her room while she was sleeping&#8230; however our cat, Tuesday was sleeping in Tessa&#8217;s bed &amp; proceeded to meow whenever I took 2 steps in her room ~ which lead to Tessa waking up &amp; gasping in shock :-)\u00a0&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/birthday-balloon-surprise\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 944859;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2522],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-pad"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2188"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2191,"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions\/2191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}