Happy Birthday, Princess

Over a month of planning and a good 8 hours of decorating and we were ready for Gwen's 4th birthday party.  The theme this year?  What else - Ariel!  I had sworn off doing birthday parties at home after the fiasco that was Gwen's 2nd birthday, but we HAD to do a princess party this year given that Gwen dressed up like Ariel every day and talks about her constantly and even insists in being called Ariel all the time ("I'm NOT Gwen!  I'm ARIEL!").

First, I was up all night converting our kitchen into Ariel's undersea kingdom.  When Gwen saw it, she gasped and ran to get her Ariel doll so she could swim in the "ocean".

Ariel called me to say she was running late, so I came up with a little art project for the kids - decorating fish for the ocean.  It kept the kids busy and enhanced the party decor.

And here was the finished product.  Gwen's is the big red fish.

Ariel (aka Samantha from Magic Princess) was great - a professionally trained singer who stayed in character the entire time and was very Disney Princess-y.  She happily sang songs as the girls were swarming her and throwing fish at her - and for some reason Gwen ran around the house finding things to give to her ... her Ariel doll, the blow-up fish, her strawberry playhouse, her vtech computer...

 After a few kids songs and a booming rendition of "Part of your World", some of the girls lost interest and trickled into the playroom.  Eventually, Ariel just joined them in the playroom and it was chaos as the kids were running around, pulling out every toy.  I didn't know how I was going to get them all back in the kitchen and in their seats to sing happy birthday and do the cake... but then, one of the moms just cried out "Cake Time!" and all the girls scurried back and jumped in their seats in no time flat.

Grace, Lola, Paloma, Gwen and Ellie

Gwen blowing out her candles - I think this is the first year she's blown them out by herself!

Awww... Paloma's cheering for Gwen!

Gwen, Ellie, Joey, Whitney, Danielle, Lain, Clara, Jordan and Ashley

 And, that's a wrap!  Happy Birthday, my sweet little princess!