Not-Too-Pink Princess Party

Once upon a time, a long time ago, the Sprout had a birthday party.

Ok, really it was not such a long time ago---just last Saturday, but I'm slow in getting this posted.  I was  busy hosting the Not-Too-Pink Princess Party, so I didn't take a lot of great pictures.   I was waiting to post until I could steal some of the Housemate's shots, but we haven't connected this week so my few photos will have to do.

Not-Too-Pink Princess Party Activities:

1) Crown Decorating
     I had visions of sewing felt crowns for each child.  They never got past the vision stage.  Then I was bemoaning my "I'm behind on planning a princess party" state to a co-worker, and she said, "Hey, I just happen to have 12 Burger King cardboard crowns in my car left over from a school event.  Do you want them?"  Not one to turn my nose up at free, I took the crowns home, gave them a quick coat of silver spray paint, and voila!  Instant crown craft.  The kids used double stick dots to stick on acrylic gems.

2) Twirling
     We put on some dancing music and gave them "dancing ribbons" to twirl with.  I bought them at the teacher store.  Teacher stores have great stuff for princess parties!  The acrylic gems were from the teacher store too.

3)  Dress Up
     Some of the princes and princess came dressed up already, others dug through our box of dress-up clothes and selected tutus and other crazy get ups.  The Sprout steadfastly wore her favorite orange hand-me-down OMSI planet tee shirt.  With assorted tutus. Mad Scientist Princess.  The Little Housemate wore her fur vest and hot pink tutu and full tattoo sleeve.  As they say in the Midwest, she is a character!



4)  Eating
      I decorated the cake, but the Wise and Bearded One manned the rest of the food prep.  Thank goodness for a handy partner!  The food was simple and some of the Sprout's favorites:  popcorn, carrot and celery sticks, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, "princess punch", cake and strawberry ice cream or orange sherbet.  Oh, and there were hot ham and cheese sandwiches and coffee and tea for the grown ups.

I believe children's parties should be fun, not too structured and SHORT.  Does that make me sound like a curmudgeon?!  I don't mean it that way, but really two to three hours is about the max before things start to fall apart.  This party was perfect in that way.  My Princess was in bed for her afternoon nap by 1:30.

And we all lived happily ever after.

The End

P.S. There are a few more photos over on flickr and I plan to post the things I actually "made" tomorrow.