Today is Asia's birthday. Yesterday, we had her party since today she has a Girl Scout's roller skating event to go to. Here's a rundown of the girls who came and their birthday presents. Asia loved them all and had a blast. All the girls got along great even though one of them didn't go to the same school (Tori who lives in Wexford - but she went to preschool at Hiland with Acacia, Meena, and Asia).
Joey S - Barbie and swimming pool
Lydia O- stuffed pony with doll
Meena L - Webkinz pony and clothes
Acacia U - Loopers potholder craft kit
Tori S - Make your own Flower vanity
Morgan N - Jewerly and scrapbook craft
Morgan K - Moonsand activity set
Shea S - ToysRUs gift card
Ricki M (babysitter and friend) - Barbie with dogs
Asia had all kinds of ideas for her birthday party. Maybe in October or so, she wanted to have her party at Build-A-Bear. She had 4 friends in mind. Then after Zach's birthday party in November, which was at our house, she wanted her party at our house and to have John plan all kinds of cool games like he did with Zach's party. Then we went to Chuck E Cheese in Texas, and Asia wanted her party there because you get a cool Olympic-looking medal. You get the idea. ChuckECheese, home, Build-a-bear, ChuckECheese,home. This went on for a few weeks, til the day before I sent out invitations. I told her she had to make up her mind because we were going to send out the invitations and if it's not at our house, I would have to make reservations. Luckily she chose home because we can do whatever games and crafts we want, while at ChuckECheese, you can only play their games. I like that idea, though more work for me.
So then Asia had all kinds of ideas on what crafts and games to play. She wanted to play hot potato but with this smiley face hackysack that Zach has. Of course, Zach said she couldn't use it for her party. She was determined that it had to be a small ball with a smiley face. Why? Because the theme of the birthday party was to be smiley faces. Another day, Asia was watching a Strawberry Shortcake DVD, and of course - "Mom, I want a Strawberry Shortcake birthday!" Her idea was to watch the DVD and one of the activities was to play the karoeke game that is included in the DVD. Well, I did get the invite out and promised a fun party and had all the guests dress in their favorite costumes. What were most girls dressed up as? Princesses, of course. I believe we had Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella all present. Snow White's outfit must not be glam enough for these girls. I don't think I ever see a Snow White.
On the day of the party, Zach went to play at his friend Ethan's house. The last thing he wanted to do is be around a bunch of little girls. Meena and Morgan K were the first to arrive. Asia would show them to the dining room table so that they can do a craft that she had planned - making necklaces with Fruit Loops and also making structures out of gumdrops, marshmallows, and toothpicks (thanks to Chelsea F for that idea). Little by little, all the girls trickled in and went straight to the dining room table to work on their crafts. They were so quiet!!! Maybe they're used to being quiet in school when working on crafts. It was hilarious how quiet and well-behaved they were. School trains them well.
Then we made party hats. Asia was determined to use these cardboard stars that I had labored over for her Christmas party and didn't get to use. I had spent nights cutting out cardboard stars that I had covered with recycled wrapping paper from past birthday parties. For the Christmas party, we were going to make wreaths with the cardboard stars and tinsel. Asia and I even made two wreaths to use for templates. So I had this box of cardboard stars that I didn't think would last til next Christmas. Asia and I decided to use them to glue on party hats. Ricki had experience with glue guns, so she got the fun job of gluing on the stars and tinsel to the hats. The girls would put stickers on the hats first and then pick their stars. While Ricki was gluing things to the hats, I had a little makeover area. The girls would pick their own nail polish color from the dazzling array I had. John got roped into doing the temporary tattoos and of course, most girls wanted them on their cheeks! And I had earring stickers for anyone who wanted them. Joey picked the color black for her nails! Hmmm...wonder if that has any indicator of her highschool years. Tori was the only one who wanted a nailcolor that matched her outfit. Again... a sign for future times?
We also played a game I bought that is like pin the tail on the donkey. Since Asia also likes My Little Pony, the game came with a big My Little Pony poster of rainbow dash and you have to put a little rainbow sticker near the pony's rainbow tattoo or whatever you would call it. The first girl to go was Morgan K and she got the rainbow right in the right spot. Well, the girls started to get a little wilder at this point. It was fun to watch. I would blindfold one girl, Asia would start to spin them around and then all the girls would help spin the poor girl and then they'd all start yelling "Stop! Stop! Stop!" and then let the blindfolded girl put the sticker on. At first some of the girls would almost put the sticker on another girl since she'd be surrounded. But eventually, the girls would just turn the one who was blindfolded straight at the poster. The first 5 girls or so all put their marks right on the rainbow spot. We didn't make a big deal of who won and luckily these girls didn't care.
I knew that Asia had a lot of games planned and I also figured the girls would want to do some free play, so I put the birthday party at 3 hours instead of the usual 2. The party started at 2 PM by about 3:30 we were done with all the games! We did pizza and cake and luckily, I had a bingo game that I bought for some birthday past. Sometimes I'm glad I hoard all this old stuff! So we played bingo. Then I used the bingo pictures for a game of pictionary (since the girls can't read yet). John took a couple of group photo's. And at the end of the party, we had happy girls running around the house. Nevertheless, I took a 3 hour nap after the party.
