Party Time

Riley mentioned months ago that she wanted a flower themed birthday party. I tucked it away in the back of my head, but then forgot about it. After last year, where we had a big kid party, we decided to keep things simple this year. As in, the grandparents, us and Riley. But then Riley brought up the flower theme again and we decided that we'd invite 3 - 5 of her friends... and then somehow we actually invited 9. In the end, only 6 could come which was the perfect size.

Riley's birthday was on Tuesday and she informed me that she wanted the house decorated for when she woke up that day. Ok. So I decorated it early - there would be a few details I knew I would add later, but it was mostly done. She was still recovering from being sick (she puked for hours Sunday night and then didn't have much appetite for a couple days after) so when she got up she didn't seem that excited which I sort of expected. No big deal as I knew the excitement would come later. As we neared her party day she shared that there better be more decorations or her party would be RUINED. Haha, really kid?

And so I made a few more tissue ball flower decorations. We do these things for our kids.

My dad has this cool kid sized table that we borrowed. I wish I had the space to keep it all the time, but it was perfect for this day. The table actually came from a building that is about 2 blocks from my home. It was once a school and when it closed, they sold the chairs and tables. I'm guessing my dad bought it 40 or 50 years ago. I'm not sure how old they were when how got them, but they are super solid pieces.

The cat knew something was up, but really had no idea what she was in for. Once the girls arrived, she spent most of her day behind the couch and eventually escaped upstairs and hid under our bed. One of the girls nicely laid out a trail of cat toys to lead her back downstairs.

Trying to entice the cat out from behind the couch

The first activity for the girls was to draw pictures of themselves while their eyes were closed. Riley and I did this the night before and it resulted in a lot of giggles. These girls seemed a little hesitant at first, but quickly got into it and had some fun with it. I encouraged them to keep drawing after that and it was a remarkably quiet time during the party. Some of the girls drew pictures especially for Riley which was super sweet of them to do.

Our next activity was to make flower arrangements where the girls could decorate flower pots and then choose from different flowers to make their bouquet. The girls loved this and were able to take their creations home with them.

And of course, there was food. Pizza, grapes... and cupcakes. Since Riley's party is always near Valentine's day, there are always plenty of treats to select from at the store instead of ordering something special. They weren't flower themed, but all the girls cared about was that they were cupcakes.

One of my favorite parts of the party was when Sarah and Nadine, who are sisters, sang the Happy Birthday song in Arabic. It was quite special that these little girls wanted to sing to my daughter. 

The party wrapped up with the opening of gifts (and the rest of the day was spent playing with all her new gifts).

One of the girls gave Riley a dress with flowers on it so she decided to promptly change into it and then they all either played with random toys or terrorized that cat while the adults looked on.

Loved that this little girl was engrossed with one of our family photo albums.

I have to say that Riley did a great job at coming up with a party theme. She's already announced that next year she wants a cat theme and I have no doubt that that's exactly what we'll do.