Princess Party Recap

Today was the Jooge's Princess Party. Let me tell you, it was a doozy in every pink, positive, screaming, happy kid way.

She got a beautiful new princess dress for the occasion. This is not a thin, skimpy little number. There is no hiking at the waist. There are no scratchy seams and Disney-princess medallions. It is her new favorite garment, though a tad big (the size said 2-10) but WORTH. It. (t drags a good inch or two, totally hemmable). We put her hair up in a bun and she got to wear lipstick. Yes. Mommy said YES to lipstick.

In terms of decor, I rolled out a huge roll of red craft paper that I found for $4 at Joanns as our "red carpet." We put our chalk board easel by the front door and as the picture shows, I wrote in fancy writing: Welcome All Ye Who Enter Here and then listed the guests: Princess Cora, etc.... We had a balloon bouquet that the kids played around with when they first got there, that was kind of fun. We also did the pink plastic table cloth and pink plates/napkins and purple cups.

She had six friends over, one whom was a boy. We had dancing to beautiful princess music. I had them practice walking around with books on their heads, because all princes and princesses have great posture.We made magic wands. The dollar store had foam rubber princess cone type hats with a thin strip of tulle coming out of the top and I let them decorate those. All of the kids were 3, 4 year olds so that got a small amount of their attention. We used glitter glue sticks, little puff balls, and stickers.

We had cupcakes, cherry chip with homemade butter cream frosting. I served strawberry ice cream (pre-scooped) in cupcake papers but was then not sure about using spoons or not. We used spoons. I found little"glass slippers" at the dollar store that I filled with jelly beans, I mean shucks, they hadn't eaten enough sugar yet, why not load 'em up with more. (Plus pink lemonade.) The kids had time to run around a bit and then we did gifts. She was so excited about her presents and got some great things that I never would have thought to get her. How fun! When it was time to go her friend (the lone Prince at the party) said, "Can I have a goodbye kiss?" And they came together in a little lip-kiss. There happened to be a grandma standing nearby that gasped in disbelief but I thought it was so dang cute.

I sent them off with their butterfly decorated goody bags: a princess pen, ring pop, candy bracelet, plus their wands, hats, and glass slippers. But the best part of all, is that I got them all together in the hallway and I whispered in excitement that I'd just heard some bells and when I looked there were these little vials, and do you know what they are? (Picture the very height of excitement being dramatized by me). These are from a FAIRY GODMOTHER and she said we all needed our very own vial of MAGIC DUST! But, beware, you can't open them here, they don't work at our house. They are only magical at your house. AND, you can only sprinkle a tiny bit for it to work. Each and every face was aghast and thrilled all at once. In fact a mom arrived just them to pick them up and one of the kids who she didn't even know came up to her and screamed, "WE JUST GOT MAGIC FAIRY DUST FROM A FAIRY GODMOTHER!" It was really pretty sinister to send them off with glitter, but each and every mom there was equipped to further my efforts at the proper dispensing of the magical matter. I hope.

What made the party so grand was the people there, great kids, great moms, and the magic that comes with seeing your kid happy, surrounded by friends and yeses and cupcakes and a celebration of her. I WAS going to go above and beyond and construct a throne for pictures, do a lot more detail with the cupcakes, make mixes for each princess to take home. But none of those details were missed and in not doing them I had time to do other things, like sweep the floor and dust and vacuum.

We were sitting outside after the party, Jooge still dressed in her "regalia" when a swallowtail looking butterfly flew by. This never happens, it was such a treat. Not only does she love all things princess but she loves all things butterfly. It was as though the butterfly was twittering by to say hello and wish her a happy day.