I promised myself and Matt that I would only throw the children a birthday party every other year, because this is how I grew up. We would have a family party and then a friend party the next year, but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to throw Nicoley a little tea party with the little girl friends that she has made in preschool. I came up with the theme and became totally attached to it and had to convince Nicoley that it was the right choice for her party.
I easily could have spent hundreds of dollars on decorations, food, and dress ups for the party, but seeing as how we are not a wealthy family, I had to create most of the decorations and food and went with a simple spring dress for Cole's outfit. I had a lot of fun buying and creating all the stuff for the party. I really wanted it to be a bit magical for Nicole.
I researched tea party and little girl party decorations before hand, and I wish that it looked like those pictures that I saw on pinterest, but I'm just not a professional party planner. But, even so, I was pleased with how it turned out. Granted, I would have rather had pink tulle all over every thing rather than streamers, but lets face it, she is four, she doesn't care, only I care.
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| cream cheese and jam sandwiches, fancy little debbie cakes, and frosted sugar cookies |
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| I had one two year old at the party, so she had her own plastic cup to avoid the possible breakage of my good china |
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| party favors |
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| The banner I created by sewing paper together |
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| strawberry, funfetti cupcakes |
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| My rose china that I inherited from my great grandma. The "tea" was actually pink lemonade as it went with the "pink" theme |
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| All the girls had crazy straws in their party favor bags so that they could drink their "tea" with them. |
Decorating took forever because I was trying to manage kids and decorate at the same time and I only had a small window to do it since I had to wait until after the kids ate lunch to do the table, but I was pleased with the result. I'm a little bit proud of myself because I've never thrown a party this pretty before.
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| Nicole in her brand new spring dress that went perfectly with the shoes she got for christmas |
Nicole looked beautiful and even let me braid her hair, for which I was very pleased.
Nicole was very excited for the party when she saw the decorations going up, but she got sick of waiting for her friends to get there and started in on the snacks before her friends arrived. I really thought that the "tea" part of the party would last a long time, but it turns out that four year olds get bored really fast and after 20 minutes of tea time, they were done.
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| All the girls got sunglasses in their favor bags, so I made sure that Nicole got a new pair of glasses too. This child goes through sunglasses as quickly as I do. |
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| Girls from her preschool group |
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| cousins Lucy and Olivia |
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| Marie is not a little girl, but she did come and help me run the party. I was so glad that she and my sister in law, Jill, were there as it is hard to manage 8 four year olds all alone. |
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| Girl from preschool |
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| Dano had a good time at the party too. He just ran around while I fed him cookies on the side. |
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| Nicole had a hard time blowing out the candles, so I ended up helping her out. |
After the "tea" part of the party and singing happy birthday, it had only been 30 minutes and the girls were ready to move on. I planned an activity for the party, but I only had one as I'm lame like that and assumed that the girls would want to play tea party for the majority of the party.
I had the girls make "candy" necklaces out of fruit loops, gummy rings, and life savers. Unfortunately, I over estimated the dexterity that a four year old has and a lot of the girls needed a lot of help stringing their necklaces. Which made me grateful for my helper sisters.
I don't know why I felt so nervous about entertaining the girls for the measly hour and half that I had them, but I guess it is because I have never held a child's birthday party where parents just drop off their kids and then I am in charge of them. Every party my children have had up until this point, I have invited my siblings and in-laws and they come with their whole families so there has always been a whole bunch of adults. Retrospectively, I know it turned out fine, but I had a lot of fear at the time.
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| Snagging some cake for myself |
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| Nicole was dying to eat the cupcakes and that is why we sang happy birthday so early in the party. I wouldn't let anyone have cupcakes until we sang and of course all the girls wanted a cupcake. |
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| Necklace making food |
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| Cousin Keira sampling her necklace |
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| Cousin Lucy showing off the necklace |
The necklace activity was a really cute idea, but I didn't really get to enjoy Nicole doing it because I was so busy helping the other girls. Necklaces also didn't take as long as I thought they would and we still had like 35 minutes left of the party and I knew that presents would not take that long. So, I sent the girls downstairs to play with toys for a while. Nicole had a hard time with this. At first, she didn't want to play with the other girls and she sat on the couch and watched them play. I think she was feeling overwhelmed with the amount of people playing with her toys and the amount of people there. But, after 5 minutes or so, she got up and started playing and did great.
Then we opened presents and she got a lot of neat toys from her friends. The hardest part with the presents was keeping the children from getting on top of Nicole. They all wanted to see everything that she got.
We still had more time after gifts, so I sent the girls downstairs to play some more while I attempted to clean up... which didn't actually happen until the next day and I will tell you why in another post.
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| Dan liked opening presents too |
The last ten minutes of the party, the girls played with toys while the parents picked up their kids. Which was a lot of work too. Who knew how much the girls could scatter their belongings. I had to find shoes, jackets, party favor bags, candy necklaces and the girls themselves to get them out the door.
I think the party was a big success and Nicole only had a couple of crying fits over things that I can't remember. But, it wouldn't be a party unless Nicole cried at least once, as is her way. Matt was even able to wake up in time to see Cole open her gifts.
