Back-blogging: Princess Party for our Six-Year-Old!

Guess who turned SIX?!?!

Happy Birthday to our sweet Samantha girl! I was just collecting pictures to write about her birthday, and I realized we haven't taken many pics of just Samantha lately. We'll have to fix that, in the next weeks, eh?

Well, I thought I'd show some pictures of her fun birthday party. She wanted to have a Princess Party this year, like her two other friends from church and school had earlier this fall. Funny, she's never actually had a "friends" birthday party; we were planning to do one when she turned five, but she decided she'd rather just have a family day and go to the Boise Children's Discovery Center. Fair enough.

So, finally, a "friends" party, and finally a princess party. It was low-key, but fun. She invited five girls, but in the end one couldn't come, one got sick... and it turned into a party of three. We played a game of "draw a beautiful princess." They all did a great job and really got into it. But they were mad about Spencer's scribbles (as you can see on the lower right corner of their princess poster, below)...

Spencer was promptly banished to his own coloring sheet. (And yes, he's wearing a tutu. I mean, it was a princess party, after all). After they finished their drawings, they coached me on drawing a HUGE princess on the other side of their poster, then we played "pin the crown on the princess." I was the one directing the blindfolded girls with their crowns, so no pics of that game. (And luckily, no pics of my fine artsy princess, who had "too puffy" of hair, they told me.)

Next, was a rousing game of musical chairs, Samantha's absolute favorite. I took a few vids...

Then, my most creative idea was to let them decorate Samantha's cake. I'm telling you, that was a hit!! They felt soooo privileged and excited to be able to put their own flourishes into the decorating... and eat some of the candies as they went.

They were very intent and serious about their work...

And the end result. Too much is NEVER enough!!

This is weird, but I was really worried the cake decorating idea was going to "go south" so I bought pink snowball cakes, and for some reason put her candles on the snowballs. Funny, eh? They didn't even eat the snowballs, but they LOVED the red velvet cake.

I know I took a little video of the "happy birthday" song, but it must have gotten erased, I guess. Darn. It was really cute. Imagine little girlies, all wanting to blow together.

And the presents... She got some really fun, sweet gifts from her friends, and from grandmas and grandpas, and Dad and Mom. This wasn't the whole stash, but it shows a few of her goodies, anyway...

To open the presents, we played this game called, um... "guess who said happy birthday while you're in this big box." Can you figure how that one worked? Well, yep... Samantha climbed in the box, we all danced around it singing Happy Birthday, while we spun the box in a circle. Then I pointed to one of the kids and they disguised their voice and said, "Happy Birthday!" When she guessed who said it, she got to open the present they brought. She loved it.

Then after it was over, we let each of the party goers have a go in the box. We sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" to them, instead. Then someone said, "Merry Christmas!" and they had to guess who. I'm so creative, eh? ha!

Then we played Twister (one of her gifts), ate more cake and ice cream and special raspberry soda punch drink, and the girls went home. When her daddy came home a little bit later, we have a little more cake, to celebrate with him. And now... she's six!! We sure do love our Samantha girl.