Princess Party

It was the social event of the year...at least for 4 & 5 year old little girls. Reese turns five this week, and when she recently began getting party invitations in the mail to other kids' parties, I figured it was a great year to start her official Friends Birthday Party.

Now, I can't decorate my way out of a paper bag when it comes to interior designing my house, but give me a theme of some sort, and I go crazy. All it took was for Reese to say, "I want a Sleeping Beauty party", and my wheels started turning. We had a Princess Tea Party. All the girls came dressed up as Princesses. It. Was. Too. Cute.

All I can say is, whoever invented tulle material is a genius! It is so easy to work with and made everything look so glamorous. Reese wanted pink, pink, and more pink...and that's exactly what she got. It looked like a Pepto Bismol bottle exploded in our dining room.

 

 

I had to start decorating last weekend because David was in California for most of this past week, and I didn't want to wait til the last minute to get everything done. I still spent all evening Friday decorating, then got up early Saturday morning to finish. The dining room was the Tea Room (obviously). We turned the living room into the Ballroom. David's contribution to the party (besides keeping Tate occupied for two hours) was to blow up 72 pink balloons for the ballroom dance floor, which the girls twirled around in as they danced to Princess music. The basement was transformed into the Enchanted Forest (Reese's idea) where we played the games and opened the gifts.

Here's my sweet little Sleeping Beauty...

 

With this being our first friends party ever, I wasn't sure how much to plan. The girls decorated treasure boxes while everyone was arriving, then I did face painting. Nothing too elaborate...I gave them the choice of a heart, star, crown, or butterfly. We played pin the crown on the frog, and a Magical Hearts game which is like musical chairs. Whoever got out after each round was supposed to give Reese their present to open. They were all so smart that when I stopped the music, they all hopped off their heart and yelled, "I'm out. I'm not on a heart. Reese gets to open my gift now!". So, we had to quickly switch to Princess Trivia, and whoever answered the question correctly got to give Reese their gift.

I was so nervous when I sent out the invitations that for some reason, no one would be able to come. It goes back to that feeling of never wanting your kids to be disappointed. I kept picturing Peter Brady sitting all alone at his party when no one was showing up. I actually went so far as to prepare Reese for that. Well, I knew at least one little girl was for sure going to come so I said in an upbeat tone, "Even if it's just us and her, we'll have a great time!".

Lo and behold, ALL 8 girls we invited were able to come! So there were 10 little princesses in all counting Reese and Drue. OK, so one little girl isn't into dressing up and came in leggings, but when her mom dropped her off she lightheartedly said, "Just pretend she's wearing a beautiful gown."

Reese was a great little hostess and really tried to play with everyone. All the little girls were from our church so they all knew each other, which made it even better. As they were sitting around the table waiting patiently for their "tea", I heard Reese give a little speech (with absolutely no prodding whatsoever.) I am kicking myself for not getting it on tape. She told the girls how she loved all the presents they brought, and she actually went around the table and called them each out by name saying how much she liked their present. "Lauren, I loved your present. And Maddy, your gift was great...". Sweetness.

It really was a fun time. I have no crazy tales of wanting to pull my hair out with 10 screaming, giggling little girls running a muck through my house. I had a blast with them. And am actually looking forward to the next kids' party we get to host. David is refusing to let me reuse any of the pink tulle for Tate's party in the Spring, however. Party Pooper.

Speaking of Tate, after everyone had gone home and we were cleaning up, we noticed Tate was missing. This is never a good thing so I went searching and this is where I found him....