top 5 tuesday: best birthday parties

DISCLAIMER: this is a slightly selfish and somewhat personally nostalgic post!

So, today is my 26th birthday. Over the last 26 years, I've had quite the variety of birthday parties. For today's Top 5 post, I'm going to share some of my favorite birthday party memories. I may not remember the age I turned, but I remember the par-tay fo' sho!

1. When I turned 22, I had a Mexican Fiesta party complete with mariachi music, 7ft cactus wall hangings, chili pepper christmas lights and taquitos. YUM!

2. My 11th (I think) birthday was at a roller skating rink here in Charlotte called Tradewinds. I remember having my party at the Aladdin table and all my friends skated and ate cake. A few years later, someone was shot and killed at the skating rink and it closed. Plus, it was kind of in the ghetto. (echo: in the ghetto)

3. I had a series of birthdays from maybe 12-14 that consisted of a similar routine. a) invite preteen or teenage girls over for homemade tacos b) pile teenage girls into minivan and drop off at the mall for a few hours c) bring teenage girls home for snack and an eventual sleepover. There were some variations to this plan that included an Ace Ventura birthday theme, a Mary Kay makeover and photo shoot and a homemade sunflower cake made with Twinkies.

4. When I was younger, maybe 5 or 6, I remember having a birthday party with all of my classmates from school at my house. We had a pinata...indoors. HA! Also, someone decided to give me a purse as a gift and inside of it was underwear. Once my sister saw the underwear she took them from me and held them up for everyone to see. Awesome.

5. This isn't necessarily an official birthday party, but when I was turning..oh, maybe 12 or 13, I somehow ended up in Columbia, SC with my grandparents. My grandmother took me shopping for clothes and for a bra...how embarrassing, and then we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant there. I remember having to stand up on a chair while they sang Happy Birthday to me....while I wore my new bra and shirt. Never have I been more mortified in my life. To this day I still get a little queasy when I hear the waiters in restaurants start singing the birthday song.

This is me on my first birthday. I'm not sure why I look so nervous. Perhaps it was because I knew the mess that was being made with the cake...and my inability to walk over and clean it up. I also noticed in this picture that if there was ever question as to me being my father's daughter...here is the evidence to prove it. Also, this was probably the last time I ever had white cake with white icing...and the only reason I had it for my first birthday is because I couldn't talk, let alone diagram my cake out using Adobe Photoshop.