The Princess Par-Tea

Whew!  Kenna's birthday party was yesterday--a long-anticipated event, I might add!  She got to the point Saturday where she was asking how many minutes until her "girls" came!  It was a wild success, for the most part.  I was a little shocked that every single little girl we invited showed up, aside from one who was planning to come but unfortunately got the flu.  So there were a total of 8 little princesses running around, plus parents and siblings.  Kenna was in heaven!

We invited the girls to dress up in their favorite princess costume, so of course I seized the opportunity to wear my Renaissance Fair dress! 

We started with craft time at the table.  I printed out princess coloring sheets for the girls to color while we waited for everyone to arrive.  Then the princesses decorated crowns (kits from the dollar store) with stickers and jewels.  Finally, we made "Royal Play Dough," which was homemade play dough that we sprinkled fine glitter on and had the girls work into the dough so that it was sparkly.  Charis helped make the dough the day before--this is the BEST homemade play dough recipe!  Even the boys were playing with it, despite its pink color!  We put the balls in ziplocks for the girls to take home.

Then it was time for the princesses to find their "lost" slippers!  Charis had hidden one of each of their shoes while they worked on crafts.  She hid a piece of homemade candy in each one, so they enjoyed a peanut-butter treat when they found their slippers again.

What's a kid's birthday party without a Pin the ____ on the _____ game?!  Charis drew the Cinderella poster herself and cut out clip art crowns for the girls to tape up.  Did I mention Charis was my Party Helper?!  She was AMAZING!  From food preparations to decorating the party room, I could not have pulled this off without her.  Having her help allowed me to have FUN instead of being stressed!

We had a "Royal Ball," during which we played some classical music and had the princesses dance around.  We gave them pink strips of decorating paper to twirl around.  They were to freeze in place when the music stopped.  It was so much fun to watch them!  Then Charis led them in a game of "The Queen Says" (i.e. Simon Says) while I finished putting food on the table for the "tea party."

You can't see it really well in the picture, but we did a Fruit Rainbow, which was a fantastic idea I stole from my college friend Lisa, as well as a veggie tray, deviled eggs, mini pumpkin muffins, and orange cookies.  (As an aside, everything we served was GAPS-approved!)  Due to the sheer number of bodies in the house (8 princesses, 9 adults, and 5 siblings), we opted to forgo actually having tea.  (We served sparkling flavored mineral water from Trader Joe's as drinks...and ended up getting plain water when some little princesses didn't like the mineral water!)

Then it was time for presents.  We had Kenna sit on a cute princess chair that our neighbors had given us the week before--perfect!  The little girls crowded around and oohed and aahed over her gifts. 

Here are the 8 princesses on the couch!  Four of them are AWANA Cubbies friends who sit at Kenna's table, 1 is a neighbor friend, and 2 are friends from our monthly family community. 

I spent so much time making a homemade cake that fit our current dietary guidelines that there was really no time leftover to spend on making it look fancy, so I borrowed a tiara from Charis to plop on there!

Kenna had trouble blowing out the flames!  I'm not sure what she was (or wasn't) doing, but it was funny to watch her try!  The two girls on either side of her ended up helping blow them out.

So, I have to be honest, the cake itself was somewhat disappointing.  Our family, and Sidra and her little girl (in other words, those of us doing the GAPS diet), liked it (well, Kenna only ate the frosting), but let's just say there were a lot of partially-eaten pieces left on plates after the party!  I made a HUGE mistake in speaking to the parents and saying something about there not being sugar in the cake, but of course the girls overheard, and I think that really tainted their opinion of the cake!  Lesson learned...keep your mouth closed until AFTER they sample, LOL!  It's good to eat, but it's more of a sweetbread kind of taste rather than a birthday cake kind of taste.  I can definitely see why they wouldn't care for it as much.  I think it does go to show how much our family's taste buds have changed!  Using honey and stevia as our only sweeteners has helped break the sugar addiction I know we all struggled with.  (It was a happy, ignorant struggle, to be sure, but trust me, we were sugar addicts who thought we were a healthy family!)

Our party favors also came from the dollar store...my goal was to find some "useful" objects and definitely not include candy, LOL.  We found chunky princess crayons, 50-piece princess puzzles, and adorable ice cream cone bubble containers.  All 3 items fit very nicely in the party favor bags.  I was pleased--a nice, inexpensive way to thank the guests for coming!  Kenna was happy there was a puzzle left over for her. :-)

All in all, it was a very fun event.  Kenna hasn't had her very own birthday party with guests since she turned one, and it was fun letting her be the star for the day.  Being one of the younger kids, she often just gets lumped in with what the older kids are doing, and I felt it was important for her to have her very own party, even though we don't typically do this all the time.  We're supposed to be having a family celebration with gifts and cake this evening, but she is currently sacked out on the couch!  I think she is still recovering from being sick on Wednesday.  She had a raging fever that day, and while that was the only day she had the fever, she spent a lot of time Thursday and Friday sleeping on the couch.  Saturday she was pretty lively, but for obvious reasons!  And today she was wiped out again.  Poor li'l princess!  We'll see how she feels when she wakes up, and I'll have to post more pictures of family gifts later.