Celebratin' Princess Style

We celebrated Ella's birthday last Saturday with an "All the Princesses" themed party. She was so excited!! She made a paper chain with Aunt Jenelle around Fourth of July and we took one ring off each day so she could see when it was getting closer to her birthday. This worked great! She was so excited as we got down to 8, 7, 6, 5....and so on.

We invited a few of her school and neighborhood friends and had both my cousin Cindy's kids and my cousin Kris' kids besides some grandparents, great-grandmas, and aunts. I decided to have an afternoon party this year so I wouldn't have to worry about a big meal and we mostly focused on the kids.

It wouldn't be a "Holly-planned" event without some sort of arts and crafts activity. So as the kids arrived they all made a crown to wear on their head and decorated a small crown to use in a pin-the-crown-on-the-princess game.



After the Princess game, we showed them how we were going to make ice cream in ice cream balls and they helped put the ice in one of them. We took them outside and put them to "work" rolling and shaking the ice cream balls around. They had a great time bowling and doing an obstacle course.

Filling the ice cream ball, bowling and the obstacle course:


Then while the adults finished the ice cream balls, the kids looked for treasure in the sand box:


We actually got to sing "Happy Birthday" to Ella this year, the first time since she turned two and she had a major meltdown as everyone sang. After we sang, the kids all made their own ice cream sundaes and enjoyed cupcakes.





They all sat nicely around Ella while she opened her gifts. We were so proud of Ella. We didn't say a word to her about how she should open gifts (ie: card first, then gift) or that she should say thank you to each person after she opened it. She just did it! We were amazed at how genuinely excited she was by each and every gift. She told each person a sincere thank you right away when she opened the gift. And she even didn't care that her friends were all crowding her and helping her open everything. We just were so impressed that our little five year old handled the situation so well! Aww...she's really growing up!



We pretty much opened up all her gifts that evening and the next morning. She loved everything! Here Ella tries out some of her new things:



Although she has her moments as any little kid does, she is just so sweet to us and helps us out. She even helps Lily at times. She tries so hard at everything she does and is so proud when she gets something difficult. It has been so fun to see her grow and develop over the past five years. Happy Birthday Ella Bella!!

(PS. A special thanks to my dad and Clare for letting us borrow their camera to take pictures for Ella's birthday!!!)