Party Fun - Superhero Party

I love birthday parties at the Kid's age because the parents still get into it and there is almost always a request for kids to be in costume. So when we got this invite to a school classmate's party a few weeks ago, the Kid decided her party alter ego would be "Butterfly Girl", who apparently has the superpower of being able to fly away really fast. (Cape and mask from babypop.com)

Of course, Butterfly Girl was accompanied by a few of her compadres, Green Lantern and Tornado Girl.

I was recruited to man the Superhero rescue station (in this amazing treehouse in the birthday boy's backyard). This was my view of the main house from my perch with a cold beverage (ahem) in the treehouse. Seriously it was ten acres of real estate bliss.

Wonderwoman and The Riddler (the birthday boy's parents) made an appearance. They are braver than I am to let a bunch of five year olds loose with cans of Silly String!

 The best part was cooling off with popsicles after the party.

I want to freeze them at this age forever. 

Except for the whining. 

Princess Tea Party, Part 4: Kid's Photo Booth

I totally forgot to link to these pictures! Another activity we did was to have the guests pose in a makeshift photo booth in the front hallway.

If you remember, I had set up a backdrop before the party using a leftover piece of pink gingham hot glued to an empty gift wrap tube. I used a length of coordinating purple grosgrain ribbon and an pennant of paper flags for the background. I attached the whole contraption to the door using 3M hooks and foam tape. There was a basket of props nearby for the kids to pose with. An old frame spray painted red was a perfect final prop.





The girls had a lot of fun posing for the photographer. Permission granted from parents.





This photo booth idea is all over Pinterest for weddings and other parties, so be sure to check it out and maybe add one to your next party!

Princess Tea Party, Part 3: the Kids

Last princess tea party post! This post highlights a few of the activities that we did besides the princesses visiting. I sort of winged it for the last half of the party when it came to activities, so I was grateful the weather allowed the kids to play outside. Note to self, get a jungle gym...

The birthday girl...




Guests working very, very hard on their tea party hats. I got the hats from the dollar section at Target and the girls decorated them with feathers (never again!) and foam stickers (in shapes of cupcakes, hearts, butterflies and flowers). It was a perfect starting activity to get everyone occupied.








Me pouring tea (aka, raspberry lemonade). I'll keep my day job. I will say that the pouring of tea from real teapots elicited hilarious gasps from the Kid's friends.




My dudes. The little dude thankfully slept for the first half of the party. Smooches!




We asked the guests to wear a princess outfit or to dress for a tea party and I was happy to see so many of them actually did. It really helped set the scene. I also commandeered a friend's older daughter (the one in the pictures wearing the red and blue apron) to help with serving. She was really into it and was so sweet and helpful.




Love this picture. Makes me happy. The little girl on the right is OBSESSED with our baby. She asks me every single time we see her at school, "where's your baby?". Love her.




The very methodical and deliberate gift opening process. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought the Kid was going to save the wrapping paper for later. It was that slow.




After the party, kids were crying they didn't want to leave, they had such a good time. My evil plan has worked, mwahahaha!

There may have been bribery involved (use of an electronic device that rhymes with Shy-fad) to get the Kid to smile for this picture.


 J.Crew cardiganCalvin Klein dressVintage aprons (not pictured)

Princess Tea Party, Part 2: The Entertainment

Here are the pictures I have been looking forward to posting - the pictures of the little guests with the birthday surprise guests of princesses. I had a blast planning for this and I had no idea what a hit the princesses we hired would be for this age. If you know a little girl who is into princesses and is age 4-6, this is the PERFECT entertainment for the party. I got a recommendation from a friend for a local company called Party Belles of Nashville and could not have been happier with the result.

If princesses had been a thing when I was in college, you can bet your arse I would have been singing my little Tiana heart out at parties. Would have been a great side gig. The parents were super impressed with the princesses and more importantly, the Kid's guests were in awe. One little girl thought we flew the princesses up from Florida. That will have to wait until the Kid's Super Sweet 16, sorry. Cinderella and Belle serendipitously arrived just when the girls were gathering on the steps for pictures.

Afterwards I have been told that grandparents were called, children were speechless and the Kid is officially a rockstar with her friends.

Feminist notions of postmodern images of women aside, I'm pretty sure this is the definition of glee.

The package we got included songs, a story and the princesses teaching the guests a dance. I love how rapt the audience is.

Those dance lessons had better pay off!

 

They even stayed to sing Happy Birthday with the birthday girl.

Two huge thumbs up from this satisfied mama! The last set of party pics is coming up soon...

 

Princess Tea Party, Part 1: Decor

Here is the first set of pictures from the princess tea party. My new favorite tool for parties is the Silhouette SD that I got over a year ago, but barely used. It is the perfect thing for customizing decorations for the party.

I downloaded a tea party template for 99 cents. With that, I made these cutouts that I attached to wooden dowels and then placed along our front walkway to welcome the guests for tea.






We set up the dining room as the area for food and drinks. A simple birthday pennant banner was strung along our hutch (redo written about in this post).

We set up the teapots (borrowed from a tea-loving friend!) along with some disposable teacups (from a local party supply store) on trays for easy serving.

Food included strawberry and lollipop trees (styrofoam balls covered in plastic wrap, toothpicks and a wooden dowel inserted through upside-down flower pots) orange slices, lemon poppyseed scones (yay, Whole Foods) and purple marshmallows. From Publix, we scored the cookies, cupcakes and turkey and pizza pinwheels.

I made the teahouse sign using a piece of foam board and pink gingham fabric left over from past parties.

The gift bags were from Target and had wands and m&ms for the girls. The Silhouette machine came in handy again for the bags.

Who knew a grocery store (Publix) could do a tiered cake so inexpensively?

I also reused the flower poms from my friend's baby shower last year.

I rented tables, chairs and linens for extra seating. Costco came to the rescue for the flowers. The flower water inadvertently got dyed purple, which was an unexpected and welcome effect.

My favorite thing (more pictures to come) was the photo booth that I set up behind the front door for the girls to take pictures. I used an empty picture frame for them to take pictures. The backdrop for the photo booth is leftover fabric from my friend's shower hot glued to an empty wrapping paper tube and decorated with paper pennants.

Inside the little basket next to the door were boas, wands and tiaras from the Kid's dress up trunk in her room.

I'll post the party pictures of the birthday girl and her friends in my next post!

Princess Tea Party Preview and Planning a Kid's Party

Here is a quick preview of pictures from the Kid's tea party from this past weekend. I have a good friend who throws at least a half dozen parties like this a year and I don't know how she does it! I was pooped afterwards. I channeled her party mojo for this. The best thing I did was to hire a friend to take pictures, so better pictures than from my iPhone are forthcoming.





How to Plan a Kid's Tea Party

Who: We decided to invite both preschool friends and good friends from Sunday school. This is the Kid's last year at her preschool and we have never had people from school over, so it was great to just relax at home with fellow parents. She also wanted her buddies from church to come, so that was a no brainer, since those moms are my good friends too. It was our first time throwing an all girls party which was a LOT of mini-estrogen, lemme tell ya!

What: We decided to do a princess tea party, since it makes for fun food and decorations.

When: We held the party from 3-5 pm. The majority of kids were 4-6 years old, so there was no concern for messing with nap times.

Where: Our house, as crazy as it sounds. We got lucky and had perfect weather, not too hot or humid, and most importantly, no rain! We set up the tea party food in the formal dining room and set up the area for the girls to eat in the sun room. The parents hung out in the living room and on the back patio. The only unexpected part was that all the kids wanted to see my Kid's room. Which meant 15 girls upstairs. No pressure! Just had to hide the iPad and my breast pump parts. Awesome.

Party schedule (I stole this general timeline my party throwing friend who always seems to have well organized parties for her children).

3:00 - 3:20 - A hands on activity. This could be a coloring page, stickers, decorating swords and tiaras, whatever. This gets the kids together in one space and lets any latecomers ease into the flow of the party. Our activity was decorating straw hats with foam stickers.

3:20 - 3:40 - Eat. We put the kids through the tea buffet to serve themselves and poured tea. While the kids were going through the buffet we quickly cleaned the craft supplies.

3:45: Everybody outside for a group picture. I've never done this before at a party, but the photographer suggested it and I think it was brilliant. It regroups the guests and you get to have the picture before any people leave early. It was a perfect way for them to be surprised when the surprise visitors, the princesses, arrived.

3:45 - 4:15 - Princesses Belle and Cinderella (Party Belles of Nashville) entertained the guests. While they were listening to songs and learning a dance, we cleared out the food and whatnot from the sunroom and got the cupcakes out and got the cake ready for singing.

4:15 - 4:20 - Kids ate cake.

4:20 - 4:30 - I let the kids run around outside to burn off some energy. I used this time to get things cleaned up from the cake.

4:30 - 4:45-ish - Open presents. Which was a free for all on par with the conch scene from Lord of the Flies.

4:45 - 5:00 - Free play and rescue my iPad from nebby five year olds.

5:01 - Collapse and remind myself why we only do a big party every other year.

It's a Cookie Swap

I am determined to get some blogging done before the baby arrives, so here goes with some way overdue posts!

For the second year in a row, I attended a cookie swap a few weeks before Christmas, but this time I had the privilege of hosting it in our home. If you have never been to one of these, get a group of friends together to do it! It is super easy to host and there is minimal clean up afterwards (my kind of party!). Valentine's Day is a perfect excuse to do something like this...
As guests came in, they saw their bags for taking cookies home at the end of the evening as well as a  welcoming message on my DIY chalkboard (thank you, Pinterest).



My dining room became cookie central for the night. For the month of December, we did a fresh cedar garland nestled with votives (carefully, because of the fire hazard) and fresh clementines. I used fake greenery to decorate the white buffet and the doorway and banister.
 


We decided to vote on a favorite cookie this year, so as people came in, they wrote their cookie name on a numbered card. The beginnings of the cookie arrival...
  


This was our Christmas tree, which we just took down last week. I figured we should bring a February baby home with a tree still up.



On a table in our foyer, I displayed the various Christmas cards we have had over the years.



Outdoor lighting leading up to the house are below. I always get a little sad when the Christmas lights start coming down, since it always makes your house look less welcoming during the cold winter days.



Still loving the lanterns!



Have you ever attended or hosted a cookie swap? Do you think it could work for a bridal shower or even Valentine's day?