Royal Party

After careful consideration of her options (large party somewhere that does all the work, a special trip to the MOA with one friend, or a small party at home), Jillian decided she just had to have "a drop off party at our house. At  night. With dinner. And with princesses". To be honest, I was REALLY hoping for a Chuck E Cheese or RAC party or something because that would have equaled ZERO work for me. But we try to make birthdays extra special, so the idea was born. We decided on "A Royal Party" (not just princesses) because there would end up being boys involved and my little party planner and I got to work. She had some grand ideas that I needed to reign in a bit (one of which was the idea of 5 special princess dresses--you know, costume changes throughout the 2 hours), and required frequent reality checks. In the end, she had a great party with 6 guests (3 sibling sets), and the wildest 2 hours that Matt and I have ever chaperoned to date....8 kids and 2 adults was pretty nuts. Bless the people who live that life. Without further ado, here are the highlights of the royal engagement!

Sofia the First manhandling Cinderella

"Come on, Cinderella, look at the queen when she takes your picture"

The princess of honor was Sofia The First

Kiwi Crate wand kits--party activity and favor

Daddy putting the Sofia balloon out of reach

The Lovely Cinderella

Beautiful Sofia

Jillian was pretty surprised to see me come out for the party in my queen costume. All hail The Queen Mum!

The first two guests arrive--Princess Rebekah and Prince Max (self-termed "The Red Prince"). Love the photobomb by Jillian.

We colored some Sofia themed pictures while we waited for others.

Do you see The King in the kitchen?

Sir William makes his grand entrance

The Fairy Princess, Rachel, arrives

The King and Queen

We began with the wand kits. 

Careful concentration

Princess Ella, Princess Jillian and The Red Prince

Love Will's face here.

Then we moved onto princess masks.

I got the boys bat masks...I don't know of any royal bats, but it made for happy boys.

Princess Ella and her sister Princess Chloe

What crazy party is complete without a pinata? I did my best to fill the castle pinata with things other than candy (since we were 2 days post Halloween), but they still got a fair dose of sugar. 

The least dangerous pinata buster we could find was one of Matt's juggling pins. Still made me nervous.

Scrambling for treats.

Thankful for dinner time--pizza

Soon it was time for cake! Jillian requested a Sofia the First cake--I think I did a pretty good job.

Satisfied customer

The Queen with her creation

Looks good enough to eat. I love this series of pics.

I love how Ella mimics the candle-blowing with her lips

Say "Birthday"!

We don't usually let our kids open the gifts during their party, but we had about 15 minutes left and it seemed like a reasonable way to fill the time.

I see you back there trying to rest on the job, my king.

All talk of wildness aside, the kids were all well behaved and I think they had a good time. All royalty were sent promptly to bed post party...the king and queen were tired from the festivities!!