Tangled Birthday Party

Brinley turned 5 on September 30 and this year for her birthday she wanted a Tangled party. This theme was hard for me because there weren't too many ideas on the internet to help me get my creative juices flowing. It also was hard because we just moved a little over a month ago, and while I am thankful we moved, it sure put a little kink in my party throwing plans. With that said, this was probably one of the most enjoyable parties I have thrown since I started doing at home parties for the girls. I started with a fun invitation created by this lady! I aboslutely loved how the invitation turned out and she was very reasonably priced!

My best friend is always willing to help me with these parties with whatever I ask her to do. I have kind of started giving her an assignment for each party, that way, it kind of ensures that she will come. For Brinley's party I asked her to make Rapunzel's tower. I didn't want it for any other reason besides a photo op. I love being able to take the kids' pictures by or with something fun at each party and I thought this would be perfect. The tower was perfect and all the little girls loved it. I loved how it turned out!

For our first activity at the party, I thought it would be fun to let the kids paint the wall like Rapunzel does. I brought home a couple of sheets from work and a few rolls of table paper. I hung a sheet on one of my bare walls and then taped the table paper horizontally across the sheet. I also covered the carpet with a couple more sheets and our art wall was ready. This was a huge hit at the party and everyone loved painting the wall. Even after the party was over a few little artists were found back in the room painting again.

For our second activity we made our very own Princess Rapunzel crown. We got a template from familyfun.com and I cut out and glued them together. Then I let the girls decorate them with foam stickers and sequins. While we decorated we decided to eat our pizza too.

Once we were done eating we and our crowns were on we played pin the nose on flynn rider. I was able to google and coloring page of flynn rider without a nose. I printed it out and took it to my nearest kinkos and had them blow it up. I also printed out a coloring page of flynn rider with a nose and cut out his nose and then blew it up on the copier at my work. The girls loved this game. The person that got their nose the closest won a princess dress up kit. Our winner was Taysee, congratulations Taysee!

We let the kids play for a while after and then it was time for presents. I had all the little princesses sit on the couch and then I called them one by one to go pick out their gift to give to Brinley. Brinley was so thankful for all that she got. It was cute to watch how excited see was and to here her say thank you. Thank you to everyone who came!

Then it was time for cake and ice cream! We sang happy birthday and Brinley blew out her candles! This is where I wasn't very creative. I didn't make any food for her party. I even bought her cake. I am so disappointmet in myself. I won't be doing that again, but she was happy.

 Mike has a coworker at his work that makes all different types of hair bows. Since I was running out of time, and I hadn't put my party favors together yet, I asked her if I got all of the supplies, if she could make the bows for me. She gladly accepted. I ordered Rapunzel bottle caps from here and I ordered some cute polka dot ribbon from ebay. His coworker made a set of hair bows for each child to take home and even made a cute Rapunzel hair bow holder to put them on. Thanks Sarah!

Thank you to everyone who came! We appreciate all the love and support you give us! Happy birthday Brinley! We hope you had a wonderful day! We are so proud of you and the beautiful little girl you have become!

Dora Adventure Party

Let me first start by saying that Kenzley LOVES Dora! It has become a serious obsession for her. When I was going through the themes of which party she could have, of course this is what she chose. It was one the easiest parties I have ever done and probably one the funnest. I started by gathering ideas for invitations, I thought about making my own invitation and making it look like a map for our adventure, I thought about doing a map for the directions to our house, and I also thought about making the invitation into a puzzle, but none could have turned out as cute as the invitation I chose to have made. I found this cute shop on etsy, fell in love with what they did, and knew that I had to use them. My next step was putting the adventure together. After several Dora episodes later, I was able to come up with quite the list of places we could stop on our adventure. I wrote the list down and asked my husband to pick 3. He choose bubble garden, chocolate mountain, and cupcake tower. Once I had my places figured out it was time to figure out what we need in our backpacks. I thought about making each child a backpack, but I didn't have enough confidence in my sewing skills, I thought about going out and buying backpacks, but that was pretty pricey. I turned to the trusty etsy website to help me find something creative. I was able to find another aDORAble (no pun intended) shop that had just what I needed. She was able to make our backpacks happen and I was so happy with the way they turned out. I then headed over the oriental trading website to help me find things we could put in our backpacks for the adventure. We needed telescopes, flashlights, friendship bracelets, & maracas. I also purchased a tunnel that we would have to go through. At my work in the gift shop they had some dora silly bands that also went in our gift bags backpacks. For bubble garden I knew I would need something that could create a lot of bubbles. I needed it to create enough bubbles and distribute them evenly for 12 three year olds. I went to walmart and found the perfect bubble machine to do the trick. For choclate mountain I wanted to create a fruit palm tree that the kids could partake of and have a chocolate fountain for them to dip their fruit in. You may think I'm crazy for doing a chocolate fountain with a bunch of three years olds, but trust me, it was a huge hit and they all loved it. For our last stop I needed to make some cupcakes and put them on a tower. We couldn't have a Dora adventure without Swiper paying us a visit, so I made some cupcakes and put them outside along with swiper the fox. When the children arrived I had the Dora theme song playing, the kids played a little bit while we waited for all of our birthday guests to arrive. Once everyone had arrived, I gave them their backpacks filled with their goodies, and we headed out for our adventure. Our first stop was at bubble garden, which was located at the front of our house. We went out our back door, took out our telescopes, and spotted the bubble. We ran to bubble garden, where the children were able to pop bubbles, we also had the popping bubbles song playing so they could pop the bubbles to the music. Next we got out our flashlights so we could go through the tunnel. I had placed the tunnel in our garage and closed the door so it was dark and the flashlights would have the right affect. The kids loved crawling through the tunnel to get to chocolate mountain. We went into the house from the garage to chocolate mountain, which was in my kitchen. The kids were given their very own Dora plate and were given free reign over the fruit palm tree and chocolate fountain. Our last stop was at cupcake tower. While the kids were busy eating at chocolate mountain, I went over and looked out our back door. I got the kids' attention by telling them that Swiper was out there and he was trying to swipe Kenzley's cupcakes. We quickly ran outside and said, "Swiper no swiping, Swiper no swiping, Swiper no swiping." He of course said "Oh man!" Then we played the we did it song and we all danced around so proud of ourselves! It was a wonderful time and the kids absolutely loved being able to take home their backpacks and their reusable dora plates. I had orginally hoped that the kids could make their friendship bracelets at the beginning of the party, but when I got them, I realized the beads were just to small and so I put them together before the party. I can't believe how fast the time has gone and that our little girl is 3! Happy Birthday Kenzley Jewell! We love you!