Growing up, my father's mother would have "grandma-grandaughter" sleepovers with all her grand-daughters. She would make, or buy, matching pajamas and give out gifts and we would play at her house.
By the time I was old enough to go to them, she had almost 50 grandchildren so she would have smaller nights inviting grandchildren of the same age over so they could enjoy a night together.
I loved having a chance to go be at my grandmothers with my cousins and getting treats and playing games.
My grandmother went blind when I was young so the opportunities were fewer and fewer as I got older. and I don't know if my younger sisters ever even had the opportunity to go to one of grandma's sleepovers.
My mother liked the events that my grandmother had with sleepovers, so when she started having her own grandchildren she started to do sleepovers. She always broke it down into "boys" and "girls" sleepovers.
She started doing them on her own when the grandkids were young. She would have them over and sit in the hot tub, paint fingernails and watch movies and having treats.
Over the years as the number of her grandchildren has grown, she has had to figure out ways how to make it work and asking for help as needed.
Since her near death experience a few years ago, she has had to ask for more help with the parties (Click here to read about her almost dying.) as her short term memory has been a problem since the brain infection.
About a year after the hospitalization, we planned this fun event where she taught the girls about make-up and color coding which has to do with the colors that look best on specific color types and she taught about face shapes and hairstyles which look best on certain face shape.
My mother was a beauty queen and model and has taught charm and those type of things for most of her adult life. She has traveled the world many times and wanted to share that information with her grand-daughters. However, getting kids of age 5 to age 20 in a room together and trying to teach them anything doesn't always work well. During the "Make-up" section, I could see that she was losing many of the girls. Some of the older girls started to get "silly" and we all ended up decorating each others faces with designs and shapes. It turned into such a fun night and I have to credit my mother, even though she had this idea that she wanted it to be a learning night, she understood when the girls just wanted to have a fun night with their cousins so she joined in the fun and allowed the girls to draw on her face. I helped "fix" the face up and we all went to the store to purchase treats with our fun faces.
We had a great photo shoot where I took "model" type photos of all the girls in their fun faces and in different poses around the house and yard. The girls wore themselves out and had a fun sleep over with breakfast in the morning.
There are so many kids and trying to do something at the houses makes it hard for everyone to sleep comfortably so for her last big Grandma-gals night, she decided to pay for the girls to all attend an amusement park. I packed up the food for the day and we had a great day riding the rides and having fun with grandma. My mother tired out halfway through the day and I was tired of pushing her around as she doesn't walk well so my niece took her home to rest later in the afternoon when she had to leave for work.
The girls slept over or at their own homes and then the next night, we went to a drive in movie and grandma provided the snacks and paid for everyone to get in.
These can be as much work as you want or simple and easy like having it at a pizza amusement center or roller rink. The biggest thing, is spending time with the grand-kids and allowing cousins to enjoy their time together.
My mother tries to make it when my out of state family is in town already. I wish I had more pictures of the ones when my girls were young but I don't have those scanned so I used the more recent ones for the post.
I do have a picture on the wall and took a picture of it to show one when she took all the girls and dressed them up into "prom" type dresses and gave them each a porcelain doll that looked like they look. She then hired a photographer (he actually took the pictures of her wedding) that she has known for years and had him take this picture of all her grand-daughters together with her. I was expecting my youngest Princess when this picture was taken. Princess number four is front and center in this photo.
Several of these grand-daughters now have daughters of their own. Three in fact. I am sure it won't be long until my sisters and I will be having our own "Grandma gals" parties.
I wish I had more professional pictures of our extended family but it has always been a struggle to get everyone together for those type of pictures so we have to be happy with the pictures I do have. .
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