Grab these ideas from our daughter’s 13th birthday celebrations to help you plan your upcoming new teen girl or boy’s birthday. This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience.
Our sweet, eldest turned 13 this past November. It was such a milestone birthday and a new era not just for her but for all of us as a family. Celebrating and making her birthday special is always a priority to us. Yet, it always feels like we do her birthdays in parts. I’d like to think it’s because we are usually just coming out of Thanksgiving and knowing that the holidays can be a tricky time for celebrations with friends since some may be out of town. S0 we break things up quite a bit for celebrating with family and friends. We do our own family and then friends depending on availability.
Happy Birthday Kiddo
She woke up to balloons and decor in her bedroom and sweet letter under her pillow. Ah, the joys. Her sister and I stayed up a bit past bedtime to decorate the room and I also wrote a letter to her for 13, while she was asleep.
Let The Celebrations Begin
This year, we started the celebrations on Thanksgiving day since her cousins were over. We did a cake and the kids sang so loudly, you’d think it was their own excitement for their own birthday. LOL. It was quite funny. You can see the excitement on her own face here.
Birthday Breakfast
We made pancakes (like I usually do on her birthdays), with whipped cream and sprinkles. However, we had to hurry because it was a school morning and the time was cutting it close to when she had to leave.
Lunch then Dinner with Friends
On her actual birthday, we went out to eat and then dinner with friends. That as a fun little time for us. We did lunch at Texas Rhode House, then pizza at MOD’s with friends, who brought some card games for playing.
Sleepover & Pool Party
Two weeks after her actual birthday, we did her party with her friends. She wanted to swim with her friends and do a sleepover. How to combine the two took some thinking and searching. In my search for that type of invitation, I finally stumbled upon a birthday invitation that said something to the effect of “Sleepover Pool Party”. I thought that was a genius way to describe what we had in mind, so that’s exactly what we called it.
Swimming
The kids really enjoyed the swimming and did not want to leave until closing time. We found an indoor pool that was opened and willing to host us for 2 hours (we only wanted about 2 hrs).
Dinner & The Sleepover
After swimming, we got them Chic-Fil-a dinner and they came back to our house to eat and start the evening festivities. We did a few games, opened gifts, party favors and the girls went upstairs to the polish nails and do make-up.
Party Gifts and Favors
The girls brought some very cool gifts for our daughter, most were nails and skin-related. I love these little customized favor bags we gave them. She wanted to give them out on sleepover night instead of when they were leaving the next day. She figured they would want to use what were in the goodie bags – headbands, lip-gloss, nail polish, and cute packs of fancy nail designs. She made the right decision. The girls were very excited for their favors, immediately put them on, then went up to the room to do make-up and nails. The headbands are seriously the cutest and are very well-made and made for the coolest sleepover party favors. You can get these Favor Bags here on Etsy. The favors we found on Amazon and Walmart. 
Sleepover Breakfast
Breakfast was Cinnamon Grands, Strawberries, Blueberries, and Orange Juice. We kept things very simple to save time. I’ve seen pancakes as a sleepover breakfast meal and was always a little timid of the thought. My thoughts and questions:
- Are these pancakes homemade? That looks like a lot of time.
- Will I have to get up super early to make them?
- And the thought occurred to me that “What if I bought frozen and reheat?
- But what if most kids don’t like frozen? My kids do not, they prefer homemade.
After asking my family what other ideas we could think of, someone suggested Cinnamon Rolls. Ah, winner winner chicken dinner….Cinnamon Rolls (from the can) it was!! I didn’t think we could have went wrong with this one but we still gave the girls a choice between Cinnamon Rolls, Frozen Waffles or Pancakes. They chose the rolls…so that’s what we did.
Trip to Disney World
For 13th birthday, we knew we wanted to do something a little different since it was a milestone birthday. I asked if she’d like to take a trip for her birthday and she immediately replied, “Disney”. I was rather surprised because I thought she would pick some other travel destination or amusement park such as Carowinds or something else.
I didn’t know she would consider Disney since we’d been several times prior, although, the last time we went it was summer of 2019 when she was 8. But that’s what we did. Most times, she would talk about SeaWorld (we’ve done that too on another birthday) but that’s because dad had a work trip close to the location around that time. But anyways, we made Disney happen.
I think when Disney was mentioned, we intended to do the Magic Kingdom. Someone mentioned that Hollywood Studios has the most rides and since she’s all about rides, she asked to go to Hollywood Studios instead. It was ok. We still think we should have gone to the Magic Kingdom but at least we got the experience of Hollywood Studios. Now we’ve been to all four of the parks.
It was a quick trip because we wanted to be back in time to prep and celebrate Thanksgiving at home. It actually was such a good decision to be back early since that gave ample time for what we (or I) had in mind – i.e to clean the house:0
All in all, it was a good time celebrating our daughter & making her birthday special. I snagged this “In My Official Teen Era” shirt off Etsy. I thought it would make an hilarious addition to her birthday. Well, she loved it! Grab it here.
She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness (Proverbs 31:27).
