Alice's Birthday Party

Last Saturday was also the same day that we let Alice have a friends party for her upcoming birthday. It was the first time she was able to do one because it's always so busy this time of year. She helped me pick out decorations and then we drove around to most of the friends to drop off their invitations last Wednesday. About half of them are friends from church. One is the neighbor friend who lives behind us. I let her invite 7 friends. Five of them were able to come, and of course Charlotte. I spend a lot of money on decorations and party favors. Maybe next time I will just let her have the party at a trampoline park or something. It probably cost around the same.

The party started at 1:30 and ended at 3:30. Originally I was just going to have snacks and dessert, but Alice really wanted to have pizza also. So, last minute we decided to get pizza as well. Curtis went to help someone in our ward with hooking up some plumbing in their kitchen, so I was left alone to get things ready with the help of the girls and Garrett. As usual, everything took longer than I expected. We didn't have time to frost the cupcakes and so I decided that we would just have the girls decorate their own cupcakes. They enjoyed doing that and some of them dumped way too many sprinkles, ha ha. 

Alice putting sprinkles on top before putting them in the oven to bake.

Stuffing the pinata.

Some of the girls had already arrived and started eating fruit before I thought to take a picture. I was trying to have healthy snacks available. Fruit, carrots w/ranch, celery w/peanut butter and baked chips.

We did things out of order than usual by singing the birthday song and having dessert right after eating lunch. Then we opened presents. Then we played a game and did the pinata. One game was Pass the Parcel, which the girls saw on the TV show "Bluey". I bought a big prize and had Garrett wrap it multiple times. The girls sat in a circle and passed the gift around while I played music. As soon as the music stopped, the person holding the gift gets to unwrap a layer. They keep going until someone gets to the prize. I didn't mean for it to happen this way, but the delay on my phone when pausing caused it to land on Alice, the birthday girl. I wanted someone else to win it since she already got presents. Oops! Later Alice gave the prize, which was a large colorful squishy stress ball, to Charlotte after the friends all left. That was so nice of her. 

It had been raining earlier in the day but thankfully it dried up enough for doing the pinata. I wasn't sure how we were going to do it if it was inside.

One of the friends had to leave early to go to another party.

Alice and her gifts. A nice coat to wear on Sundays, Cheetos snack, Bluey plushies, playdoh set, makeup, new shoes, glow stick wand (from Charlotte), Rapunzel Lego set, Bluey puzzle, a finger monkey toy, a potion bottle with a doll inside, and the big squishy ball prize. There were a few things in that brown bag also.

I had Charlotte take a picture of me and Alice later since Curtis was busy working in the garage.

This was a fun doll that you had to put ingredients in for a potion to reveal the doll inside. She gets to keep the bottle also.

The girls put together the Bluey puzzle. It was 48 pieces.

I had decided that since we didn't have grandparents here to celebrate that we would go ahead and just have one party. It was a little crazy though. The boys weren't even around when Alice opened her gifts. I think I will go back to splitting up the friends and the family parties. Alice had a great day and loved her party though.