Morgan's 16th birthday was on Saturday, May 9th.
Normally I feel like a 16th birthday is a milestone of sorts and one that we'd celebrate in a big way. Six months ago, I would have told you that Noel and I would take Morgan out to a nice restaurant and we would dress up and probably buy her something special. Who would have ever thought that as we planned her sixteenth birthday party, that we would be trying to celebrate from our home instead. Not knowing how long we'd be under self-quarantine in our house, I begin to plan a different way. Marissa and I emailed family and friends and asked them to send birthday wishes to Morgan via a video that I would put into one big montage. I also began to order party decorations and a gift online and started looking through restaurants that would allow for curb-side pick-up or home deliver. We may not be able to get out, but I wanted to bring the party to her.
Then, a week before the 9th, our governor started lifting our quarantine in phases so we saw that we could leave our house and go out for non-essential places if we wanted, but Morgan seemed to be okay with staying home. (She's our biggest introvert for sure). She told me that she wanted me to make ham and homemade mac and cheese and banana bread and she just wanted the six of us to be together at home. And so that became our new plan.
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I made Morgan's cake on Friday. She asked for an ice cream sandwich cake like we had eaten at a friend's house a few years ago. Thankfully I was able to find the recipe on pinterest and it was easy to make. It turned out SO yummy! (Definitely not healthy or low-fat by any means, but still very yummy!)
Except for the whip cream frosting, the cake was assembled and ready to go back into the freezer. Then I spent the rest of the day cleaning up the house. After Morgan went to bed Friday night, Melayna and I blew up the traditional balloons to scatter all over the house and we also hung up most of the party decorations. I'm so thankful that Morgan went to bed at a fairly early time that night because it took Melayna and I a while.
The next morning, Nolan was up early enough to help blow up a few more confetti balloon (and manage to get confetti all over the floor, if you can believe that!)
We were all excited for Morgan's big day. There were a few surprises planned for her and we were all so excited!!