Emma wanted to wear a tutu and so we picked out one that happened to match her Elsa shirt perfectly! She also wanted braids in her hair...probably to match Elsa and Anna. If only I could do fancier braids, but this worked. :)
Ready for her party!
As the first guests started to arrive, they quickly found the Frozen fruit snacks and had a little treat. Some put on the party hats, but Emma still was not into that (she's not wanted to wear party hats at other recent parties either. I thought the tiara style would interest her more, but oh well). Evan even wanted to put one on!
Then they decided they wanted more of a snack, so the kids had some of the other snacks from the snack table. It was Emma's first time having jello (that I know of), and she sure thought it felt funny how wiggly and jiggly it was! But they loved it...the jello went fast. They also started calling the punch "jello water" or "blue water"...haha.
Once most of the kids had arrived and had a snack, I broke out the "play snow". We put it in the water table and I had laid a plastic cloth down below it, but there was no way that was going to contain all the "fun" the kids had with the snow. I had kept the snow in the freezer prior to the party, so it was nice and cold when I first set it out. I made one batch 2 nights before the party and the other 2 batches the night before the party. It took me about 45 minutes per batch (a bit longer on the first batch because I wasn't sure what I was doing yet). It was just the right amount for the water table I think. As the play evolved, kids started filling buckets of snow and carrying it around, and then a few of them started taking handfuls and distributing it out on all of the flagstones. I presume that was their attempt to make the ground covered with "snow"? Either way, it was pretty much gone/all over the place by the end of the party. Including being tracked back into the house on feet, which I thought was kind of cute...made it look like Olaf had stopped by for some snacks. :) Even after some of the other activities, kids would go back and continue playing with the snow. It was a hit!
The aftermath!
Olaf left some footprints... :)
After a lot of snow play, some kids started breaking out to go play in the sand box and other things, so we called them all back together to break out the parachute. Emma and Evan did not know I had this, so I was hoping they'd be happily surprised. At first I tossed a big ball on it and asked them to bounce it around. It bounced up so high and quickly would bounce off thanks to some hard shaking from the bigger kids (i.e. Evan). In fact, Emma was a little scared/uninterested in it at this point. But then I brought out the "snowballs" (i.e. little white fluffy pom poms) for them to bounce around. They were so lightweight they looked like cotton balls on the parachute, and they also were easily bounced off, but the kids had fun retrieving them and putting them back on. I helped Emma shake it too, and then John did. After awhile, though, the play evolved organically and the kids wanted to run under it and stuff. It was great. The giggles coming out of them as they raced around and played with the parachute were great. After they were done with the parachute they ended up having a snowball fight with the fluffy white balls. Emma and Evan ganged upon John and really had a "ball" (haha). :)
After the parachute play, we did cake. I brought the cakes outside to the table for all the kids to gather round and we lit the candles and sang "Happy birthday" to Emma. She looked very serious as John lit the candles and then immediately blew all three out once we finished the song.
My happy birthday girl with her Frozen cake!
Enjoying cake and the cake decorations! :)
I managed to get some cute pics of Emma and John and even one with me too. It's always nice when I can sneak into a photo instead of always being the one behind the camera. :)
Soon the party was nearly over, so Emma wanted to do presents. As has been the case in previous parties (especially Evan's recent party), this got a bit chaotic. The kids crowded around so close to her, and kept wanting to "help" (especially Evan). Then after she'd open one, she'd be onto the next before I could keep track of what was what. She got some great new toys and books though, including several new puppies. She's named them all already (Mia is the mini version of Maya, Bugsy is the brown puppy with a ladybug on its nose, and Ralphy is the little dalmatian...she also renamed "Two", the weiner dog she's had awhile, to be "Penny"). She told me that she takes care of all of her puppies, and after her party she wanted me to take a picture of her with all of them. She also had Maya and Mia hug for one photo. Too cute!
I think she had fun, as did the other kids, and I did too. I think the party went really well, and I wasn't too stressed about it. :) In fact, for a morning party time, it was the first time I remember not rushing and being behind up until party time (and I didn't have the help of family visiting this time either, which is what always really helped at previous parties!). Even with the cool, wet morning that we awoke too (which meant John wasn't able to mow until about an hour before the party started!) we got everything done in time and the weather turned out great. Not too hot, but not too cold. Still, it was a great relief to have the party over and we all took naps that afternoon after the party. Birthday party "season" in our house is now over until next year. :)
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