M's 4th Birthday

Today my sweet, beautiful, funny, smart, unique little girl celebrated her 4th birthday.

My love of party planning has definitely rubbed off on M. Nearly a year ago she asked me for a "dress up princess tea party with breakfast food and I want everyone to hold a balloon and stand together for a picture"......... so........ basically she had no clue what she wanted and it was super easy to just throw this party together. Honestly, I struggled with this party. Most of her friends are boys. Boys at this age are a little more sensitive to girlie stuff. They don't usually want pink stuff, I wasn't sure how crazy they would be about a tea party and dressing up. I went through so many ideas, pirates and pixies, maybe princesses and knights, I had no idea what to do to make it boy friendly but still meet all her requirements. I made the first purchase for this party back in November after Halloween when Target had their post-Halloween 70% off clearance. I picked up several sets of fairy wings that came with wands and headbands for $.90 that I planned on giving the girls who came to the party. I've slowly been pinning ideas and buying little things here and there since then. I found an adorable porcelain tea set with all the Disney Princess, it came with saucers, cups, teapot, sugar bowl, creamer bowl, etic. for $12. Then I stumbled on the capes for the boys while shopping a 50% bin at Micahel's Arts & Crafts. Slowly it just sort of came together. I was not prepared for M being the only girl so after getting all the RSVP's back and we realized the fairy wings wouldn't work out, we just put a cape on her over her princess dress and she rocked it. Of course she did.

 I originally planned on doing a dress up relay sort of game or even a dress up contest and putting out all our dress up stuff so the kids could out together some crazy outfits. Since most of our dress up stuff is princess themed, we had to scrap that idea and I ended up throwing together a make-shift photo booth last minute.

 Then we set up a candy necklace station on the table and let the kids design their own candy necklaces. I used the tea cups from the tea set I scored at Goodwill and filled the cups with fruity cheerios, gummy life savers, peach o's, and chocolate pretzels. The boys were actually really into this activity and I was pleasantly surprised. I really worried this would be a little too girlie for them but they were all over it and most of them even chose the cute pink cupcake ribbon instead of the black and white polka dot ribbon.

 

 Next up we had a donut eating contest. The kids held their hands behind their backs and had to eat their donuts hands-free. It was pretty hilarious. Everyone was a winner and earned their capes just in time to take pictures outside with their balloons.

Per M's request, we served breakfast food. Bagels, muffins, scones, mini cinnamon rolls, hard boiled eggs, yogurt tubes, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, orange juice, water, and apple juice in a tea pot. Instead of cake or cupcakes, I threw together a donut cake topped off with a Tinkerbell candle because Tinkerbell is a huge hit in our house right now.

 I can't believe my girl is 4! Kindergarten is only a year away and that is insane.