Lily's favorite things change with the weather - Hairspray one day, Smurfs the next, Miss Spider the day after that, Annie that weekend, Backyardigans in the evening, Cinderella at 7:00 with a chance of showers...
So rather than picking just one thing as a theme for her party, we went with the "MIXED UP" theme! It was a Pinky Dinky Doo, Annie, Oswald, Willy Wonka, Backyardigans, ET, Miss Spider, Angelina Ballerina, Hairspray, Cinderella, Smurf birthday extravaganza.
For the invite, we made a collage of her favorite stuff and then printed it up on this awesome "jigsaw puzzle paper" we found - The picture is on one side, the info is on the other. Some people actually said they took it apart and put it back together!?
Then Mike and I wrote a silly interactive play - "Lily's Birthday Wish". Before Lily goes to bed the night before her bday she wishes that she could spend her birthday with all of her fave characters...and whattaya know...when she wakes up in the AM she's greeted by the SMURFS...then she goes to take a bath and Willy Wonka turns her bath water into chocolate...then she goes to breakfast and the Backyardigans are waiting there with a snack...and then she gets dressed for her b-day ball but she can't find one of her shoes. (Gasp!) But then Cinderella shows up and gives it to her. Woo hoo!
We created masks for the kids to color in when the got to the party. We found printables all over the web, enlarged them, traced them with sharpie so the lines were nice and crisp, and then photo copied them onto thick paper at Staples. Then we got a bunch of paint stirrers at Beacon, our fave hardware store (they're so amazingly nice they wouldn't let us pay for them!) and we used them as the handles.
When the kids got to the party they decorated the masks.
Busy at Work
How cute?
Then Emily put on the show...calling up the masked characters when she needed them for a song or a line. The kids dug it.
Emily even wore a Lily mask cause Lily didn't want to be herself, she wanted to be all of the other characters. I get it. She's herself everyday - why not be Smurfette, Willy Wonka, Cinderella and Uniqua today?
Then we all ate the puzzle cake we made...from scratch. It was all nice and organic and sugar free so Lily could eat it. It tasted pretty spongey and healthy (read: ug!)...but some people claimed they liked it. Whateve.
It was a great party. All of the kids got involved in some way or another and, most of all, the bday girl didn't cry! (A birthday miracle, right?)
Now we just have to figure out what to do for the thank yous...
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