WARNING: I wrote this in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, I haven't even gotten to the party yet, and I can tell you, this one will be LONG! :)
So as we started gearing up for a small family party a few months ago, I made the mistake of asking Cara what kind of party she wanted. She replied, A Cinderella Party! Then I asked her who she wanted to invite, and her answer was "Jack and Sam!" (Her best buds, yes, 2 little boys/brothers). I explained to her that I didn't think their daddy would like them playing dress up and doing hair and make up (what she said she wanted to do at her party), so we had to think of some girls to invite :). And invite we did. We were going to go with the every other year big party thing (and even years would be small/family). But I (yes, it's my fault) got completely carried away in the planning/fun as anything princess makes my little girl so happy! Plus (Mere--yes, this is from you), I decided if Christmas is going to be about our Savior, and His birth, and not about tons of presents, then when else can I actually get my girls and boy lots of cute things (which does NOT ever happen, believe me, you can ask them) :).
So the planning began. I usually adhere to a very strict invitation regimen ;), take the age of your child, plus one, and that's who you invite. So I was going to send out 5 invitations. This year was going to be all girls, and I decided it would be girls in her age group (i.e. her 'class' in school). We have so many good friends in our ABF at church, and if I started inviting all the little girls, well, I'd end up with a party twice as big as I had! Plus, she's made some sweet friends in Sunday School and WAM this year (it helps when you're the teacher and you get to see them each week interact with the same kids and them be so sweet to each other!) and was recently invited to their parties, so off we went! Except the 5th invite was going to a sweet pair of twins. No worries, only 6 invitees. Here's how it looked:
I was quite pleased with myself.....did it all by myself in PSE7. Except within a couple of days of handing them out, 3 of the girls said they would be out of town :(. I was already in full princess mode by this point, so I invited another cute friend. Turns, out when people tell you they 'may' be out of town, and you're sewing little crowns for party favors the week of the party, and ask to make sure they won't be there, THEY ALL COME! :) (wink, wink), so we had 8 girls at our party including Cara!
I've been wanting to get Cara a vanity for her room (that she shares with Micah, poor boy, surrounded by girlyness) because everytime we go to friend's houses that have one, she just sits at them and plays for hours! But, I refused to pay $80 for a plastic one that would just break. I looked on craigslist to find a good deal on a gently used one, and found one, but then the person sold it to their neighbor. Oh well, I had bought her a few little princess things here and there, and had ordered her her BabyBeBlessed doll LAST OCTOBER in preparation for her birthday. We put her name on it, and Psalm 28:7, the first scripture she ever memorized :). So, I almost gave up on the vanity idea, until her previous Sunday School teacher from church sent a few of us moms an email saying she had a FREE vanity!! I jumped on it and we are so glad we did! Not only does Cara love it, but everyone (yes, even the BOYS) that comes over sits and plays at it! Anyways, here are pictures from her birthday weekend/party.
We wanted to do our gifts in the morning before the party craziness (we saved 2 for her actual birthday the next day), so she woke up and we revealed the vanity (which her Dad painted over the course of the week and I recovered the bench seat...I wish I had a before picture!). She literally jumped up and down she was so excited!
(that's Eric *and Micah* in the background ripping the sheet off we used to cover it up in case she woke up)
So Happy!
This is what she did the first few days.....just sat and stared at herself!
She got a few more gifts, a little tutu, a bow holder I made with a few new bows, and a princess lap tray that has come in quite handy. All her color wonder books and markers stay in it, and even Micah likes to color at it!
So once we were home from Jack's party and rested, our princess party got started! This was the first year I ever got balloons for a party (and probably last, they are so expensive), but we had fun picking them out and she was so excited when she woke up from nap and saw them. That's all I'm going to say about this picture. Well, except the fact that my friend Aimee is awesome because I emailed her 2 nights before the party, (because it was VBS week and I hadn't had time to look up what kind of cake I wanted to make), knowing her daughter had a castle cake a few months back. She literally sent me step by step instructions, and let me borrow all the goodies to make it (think grey and pink sprinkles, cake pans, etc). Now, if only I was much good at doing decor like that, OR being patient when I finally did finish it trying to get it to the freezer....instead of being too hasty and having them all fall to the floor (and being out of sprinkles!!). Thank the Lord for my sweet/creative husband who took it upon himself to start remaking/fixing what I had broken when I declared, "I WAS DONE" and went and cried in my closet for 5 minutes at 10:30 pm. Yeah, he's awesome, and I'm a cry baby, what can I say!
So little princesses started arriving. We had 3 'stations.' Makeup was at the vanity with Yaya (my mom) in Cara's room.
Nails were in the living room with Aunt Amanda and Nana (Eric's mom). Just a side note, give a 15 year old a job at a princess party (will you paint nails for me, and bring your colors if you have any, I only have 1), and man do they deliver---20 color choices later, I think Amanda had as much fun preparing for the party as I did!
And hair in the bathroom with me and Bailey (and whoever would help, because that was a lot of little fine, not wanting to do anything hair!).
Elizabeth looks so pleased....I promise you she had fun! :)
I'm glad I made these crowns, because whether the hair curled or not (as Eric put it, with my 1980's curlers and curling irons) the crowns worked with all their hair :). As they all finished with their makeovers, we had a little fashion shoot :). Here are a handful of girls:
Princess Cara (who was kinda upset because she didn't get to have her hair curled!) :)
Princess Ellie
Princess Catherine
Princess Caroline
And then we tried to get a good group shot :) These are hilarious, I'm going to put them all up, because, really, how can you choose?? :) And Princess Elizabeth had decided she didn't want the crown and turned back into princess Fiona! :)
Then we decorated little plastic frames with glitter princess stickers, as I printed out their pictures to take home!
They loved it, I love simple, cute ideas like that (at the last minute) :).
Then we opened gifts.
How does Aynslee already know the token college girl pose? You know what I'm talking about. All those skinny college girls ALL pose like that, check your younger friends on your facebook page, I'll prove it! :)
Cara loved them all! :) She got LOTS of barbies, and they all sleep each night on her vanity!
Micah got in the action too, "What is all thise about???"
Then we had pizza, yum (for the 2nd time that day)!
Then cake!
Then the girls were just silly and played for a bit before they started going home to their own castles!
It was so much fun! Definitely my favorite party to date. Cara had such a great time and it was fun to play dress up with all the little princesses. I gotta say, Eric and his brother were great sports with all the pink and fluff in the house :). They did get out once to go get the pizza, maybe that's why they ran out the door when I asked them to go!! haha. And Cara got to wear her white ballerina princess dress one more time :)
The next day was her actual birthday, and Father's day, and she got her BBB doll and a Spunk & Sass necklace that morning :). She loved them both. And I'm glad my step-sis Shawna sent a gift card, because the first thing out of her mouth when she first saw her vanity was, "where's the play makeup??" :) So we used that to go get her play toys!
Ok, here's me publishing without going back and re-reading it, so goodnight and hopefully everything is spelled right :)
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