Believe it or no, A slept twelve hours last night. Slightly disrupted a few times by wandering over into my bed and by me pushing her off me (she's a very. close. sleeper.), but she was in bed and mostly asleep from 7 pm til 7 am. Color me impressed. Not to mention happy. It was doubly nice, actually, because I went to bed at 9 last night. I was fending off a bit of a sore throat, but between a good night's sleep and a Cold Assist tablet this morning plus a few cups of good hot tea, it seems to have retreated nicely.

This coming weekend is her third birthday. Three is the first birthday I really "celebrate" with a party and other kids and all that. One and Two are great, but they are really just little family occasions because really, the kids don't care as long as they have cake and a new toy. For C's third we rented the YMCA gym for a couple of hours, invited a dozen or fifteen kids and let them run crazy. For her fourth we did a princess party with a few good friends. For her fifth we did a pool party here on the base. Well, the gym option is a possibility but I really don't want to go to the expense or to have that many kids. The pool party the kids enjoyed but as the responsible and paying adult I was overall pretty unhappy with it. And there are other options that could be suitable, but all of them are $100+ for just the activity and that's before you add food, decorations, etc. So I thought, hmm.... how about a repeat of the princess theme? A had already made a comment or twenty about wanting to have a princess ball for her birthday (where do they come up with these things so young?). So I ran with that. We have six kids invited for a total of seven girls ages 3-6 and one boy age 2. Hopefully most of their moms will stay, but a few of them are old enough that I won't worry too much if they don't. (I've noticed a weird trend here that most people just drop off their kid and leave, and I'm thinking, are you nuts? But to each their own, I guess.)

The game plan is, the kids are all invited to "come dressed in their finest". The first activity upon arrival will be to go to the craft table and decorate a crown with jewels (I love Dollarama!). I also have some temporary tattoos of butterflies and such if they'd like one or two. While the glue is drying on their crown, they can go to the second craft table and decorate a crown-shaped picture frame. Then they can get their picture taken all dressed up and standing in front of the castle that the girls painted and glittered yesterday as a party prop. Those pictures will get printed out and put into the frames they make as a take-home souvenir of the party.

After everyone is done their crafts, we will move on to some simple games. C colored and glittered a poster of a fairy godmother, and game #1 will be to "stick the star on the fairy wand". Next we will do a variation on the idea of musical chairs, where the kids will step from one "glass slipper" to the next (paper ones on the floor). If they are up for another game we'll do "pass the wand" (a la hot potato) or "The Queen Says" (a la Simon Says). The prizes will be little princess story books, and the kids who don't win a game will still get one, don't worry.

When we are gamed out then we'll come back to the table for snacks where they'll decorate cupcakes and have little tea sandwiches (jam or nutella), cookies and fruit. I'm going to try tomorrow to dye some apple juice pink and see what happens.... if it works, great, if not then I have three more cartons stashed. The cupcakes will be the birthday cake and each kid will get a candle to blow out but A's has a special candle in the shape of a 3.

After that, of course, comes the all-important time for goodie bags and presents. It's something I did at C's third birthday and it paid off hugely - when I gave her someone's present, I gave that someone a goodie bag. It really cut down on the "what about me?!?!?" problem with little kids and presents.

At the end of all this, if there is still time left and the weather is nice, then the kids will lose their finery and we'll go outside to play. Or if it's really nice out, maybe we'll go for a royal parade around the block. That could be fun :) But it would lose something if they had to wear winter coats over their dressup.

So that's the plan. And I have a friend who is planning to come over and take pictures for me, or at least lend me her camera.

Methinks... perhaps... my mom isn't the only one who sets the bar too high for birthday parties. LOL