six: a kitty party.

The birthday deal in our house is
you get a party every other year.

On the "off" year,
the birthday kid gets a special dinner and a family get-together, but no big party.
{in other words...mom gets the year off from planning a party.}

This year was Avery's "on" year.
And because she is a fan of all things kitty,
it had to be a kitty cat party.

But the thing is,
Avery's birthday is around the last day of school.
Which, of course, is a totally peaceful, relaxed, uneventful time of year.
{insert stifled sarcastic laughter and eye rolling here.}

So even though her birthday was in the beginning of June
we just had her party on Friday.
{side note...if you can swing it, i'm a big fan of the friday afternoon party.
saturdays and sundays are always so crazy that it's hard to find
a free weekend to throw a party.
but with a friday afternoon/evening shin dig,
the weekend is still yours to enjoy.}

So...the end of the school year had left me feeling a little tapped out,
so this party had to be easy.
I decided this party would be small - just the girls from her class.
Instead of making them, I ordered invitations from etsy.
The games and activities were going to be simple, too.
The boys made us a kitty face for
pin the nose on the kitty.
Old school!



Avery loved it.
Lucy...not impressed.

The boys made mouse eggs for a mouse hunt in the backyard.
{the eggs were filled with stickers, except for one which had a toy mouse.
the girl who found the egg with the mouse got to go first on "pin the nose".}





I made a toy mouse garland
and got a lot of slack on instagram from all of the cat haters out there.
{you know who you are}



Colin made the goodie bags for me out of lunch sacks.



I stuck a hello kitty lollipop, kitty sticks, and a kit kat inside.



I ordered a dozen little stuffed kittens from Oriental Trading
and the girls each got to choose one.



At the party they made kitten collars out of ribbon, office tags, and stick-on jewels.

My friend Liz has the coolest little printer for the iphone:
it's called the Photo Cube,
and you plug your phone into the printer and it prints right from your phone.
It's awesome.



The girls posed for pictures with their kittens
and I printed them out and they got to take home a photo in their goodie bag.



Also, to keep things simple for me,
I ordered a cake for the first time in my kids' lives.
I thought I would be sad not to make their cake.



I wasn't.
It was awesome.





It was probably the easiest party I've thrown.
It was simple and the kids had fun.








Six is a fun age.

easiest treat bags ever.

I still need to finish up my craft weekend posts.
But I'm still recovering from the craft fair yesterday.
{i wasn't as successful as i would have liked.  boo.}

But we did have a successful 8th birthday party for Colin on Friday.
It wasn't at my house and I did practically no work for it.
Aren't those parties great sometimes?
I made the cake and the treat bags,
and the laser tag place did the rest.

For the treat bags:
brown lunch bags + typewriter letter stamps.

I stamped 'thank you' on each one,
and filled them all sorts of healthy treats.
{ummm...not}
Swedish fish, smarties, pretzel m&m's, twizzlers, gumballs, and gummi coke bottles.
And a couple of toys from the Halloween section at Target.

Fold the bag down, and sew with red thread.
Done.

And I can guarantee you that these turkeys didn't mind the simple treat bags.

Sugar high, anyone??

the princess tea party

The princess tea party is over.
And {I think} a success.

I loved planning Riley's 7th birthday Halloween party,
and Colin's 5th birthday Lego party,
but this is the most fun I've had planning a party.

Here's the play by play,
in case you care:

The table.
Oh, the table.
The table is the most fun to plan.
{and a super important part of a tea party, right?}

Bright fabric sashes for the chairs
are super easy to do,
and make the table look so festive.

A few months ago I put out a request on freecycle 

for some embroidery hoops.

A guy responded that he had about twenty hoops for me.

Twenty!?

They weren't the size I wanted for the project I was doing,

so they have sat in the garage for months.

But then Friday I had an epiphany:

 

They are the perfect tea party chargers!

I love them.
{i might hang them on avery's wall now...not sure.}

 

My mom came down to help with the party.

She is the best kind of helper:

the kind that brings food and helps you clean up.

Thanks, mom.

When the girls started arriving they colored 

until all of the guests were here.

Then once all of the princesses were here

they got to work making princess wands.

Every princess needs a wand.

After the wands were finished I read

"The Princess and the Pea".

{you know the one...the king and queen know the girl 

is a real princess when she feels the pea in her bed under the 

20 mattresses.}

And then we played a game to find out

which girl at the party was a *real princess*.

I l-o-v-e this age.

They buy into things like this one hundred percent.

Then it was tea time.

But before eating I gave a little mini

princess etiquette lesson.

{napkin in lap...please and thank you...the usuals}

After the girls ate their food

we had a princess ball.

Except instead of the waltz

we danced the freeze dance

to some fun songs.

{think "happy working song" from enchanted and selena gomez' "who says"}

Then after dancing

and some free play time

it was time for cake.

I had some major icing issues.

Let's all try to pretend the cake doesn't look like it's melting.

After cake the girls jumped on the trampoline for awhile

and then went home with ring pops, bubble wands, and a hair clippie with their initial.

(And I have to give major props to my friend Pat for

many of the party ideas.

She is the princess party planner extraordinaire.

Thanks, Pat A-J!)

I can't believe this girl is turning four.

I know everyone says this,

but it really does go by so quickly.

I remember her being a baby so clearly.

And now she wears a size nine in shoes

and sits on our bench with her feet almost touching the floor 

playing the iPhone.

It's not right.

But I love that she still looks little when she sleeps.

So fitting that she wore her Sleeping Beauty dress today.

****************

{don't forget to enter last week's give away here.  i'll pick the winner tomorrow.}

princess tea party invitations.

So.
Let's talk.

Did you watch The Wedding?
I didn't wake up early to watch it,
but I did record it.
Avery and I watched over coffee and milk and breakfast
and marveled.

My favorite thing Avery asked this morning:
"Is she real?"
{about Kate, of course}.

I loooved seeing how all the women were dressed.
Just once in my life I wish I had an occasion
to wear a hat like that.
I couldn't take my eyes off of them.
Especially the crazy ones.

Avery couldn't believe that they rode in a real princess carriage.
William looked very handsome,
but I'm a little partial to Harry.

I heard that Kate did her own makeup.
I love that.
And that dress?
Perfect.

It was only fitting that while we watched
The Wedding
I worked on making Avery's princess tea party invitations.

Craft paper + doilies + mod podge.
I printed the party info,
cut it out,
and glued it onto the doily.

Not too fancy,
and very easy.

I wonder if Kate's invitations included doilies?

dancey dance dance

We spent the last afternoon of winter at a wedding.
Gary's cousin got married at Tilden Park in the Berkeley hills.
It was held in the Brazil room,
and was so pretty.

There also happened to be a torrential wind
and rainstorm yesterday, and it was freezing.
But rain on your wedding day is good luck,
so it was ok.

The kids were concerned
about witnessing the kiss at the end of the ceremony.
{"grossssssssss!"}

I love seeing him in a tie.

My cute nieces.
Check out those adorable smiles.

Gary's dad, aka Opa.
All the grandkids love Opa.
By the way...this little guy?  My nephew?
He has some *serious* moves on the dance floor.

I think it's so funny that the girls want to walk around and socialize
and the boys sit and play the iphone.

And of course pooh bear came to the wedding with us.
He still goes everywhere with us.
I have nightmares about losing him.
{we did lose him once at kohl's.  that was a traumatic day.}

This is my other nephew.
He's trouble,
in a good way. :)
He reminds me of Colin at that age.

Gary's cousin the groom, and some pre-wedding pictures.

And then it was time.
The bride came out in her beautiful blue sari.

So different than the white wedding gown most of us are used to,
but so, so beautiful.

Weddings always make me grab Gary's hand
and squeeze it and think back to our wedding day.

And then of course it was dinner
and then party time.

Once the DJ started playing
the dancing began.
My favorite part. :)

I think it was my kids' first time on a dance floor.
Avery loved it...
every minute of it.
She had dance fever.

She didn't leave the dance floor for two hours!
I don't think any of the girls did.
{and my nephew was out there most of the time, too.}

The music was a great mix...
think Bollywood meets Usher.
See?  They were dance-dance-dancing like it was
the last-last night of their life....
{that's an Usher reference, mom.}

The boys tried to hang on the dance floor for awhile,
but they couldn't keep up with their sister.
I think it was only about 8:30 by this time,
but they were so tired.

Avery was still going strong.

I'm sure I don't even have to tell you
that when it was time to leave the kids
passed out in the car.

It was a fun night,
and the perfect way to end winter.
I only wish I had woken up this morning
to a beautiful spring day,
but no.

It's stormy and windy and in the 40's.
It's supposed to be that way all week,
and of course we're now on spring break.

We won't be outside much,
so I think I see a living room dance party
in our near future.