Birthday party

With a little help from my friends... with mom and Aunt Barb in town (and despite Bill being out of town...) we put together a real birthday party for Isabella. Katie, Molly, Rena, and Lynn were there, and much sugar was consumed by all. I was going to try to save the presents for later, but Isabella took thins into her own hands, quite literally. Fortunately, she's good about sharing, and didn't mind letting Rena play with the tea set and everyone play doctor with the very cool doctor set (complete with pokey).

We started out with making crowns, which mom had cut out of craft paper. We gave each girl their own decorating stickers and glitter glue. They do this so often at day care that they sat right down and went to it. Molly and Isabella were so enamored of their crowns that they wore them to day care off and on for the next couple days (Isabella's is still sitting by her nightstand a month later).

Following crowns we had a treasure hunt. Didn't take them long to figure out what they were suppose to do. They quite helpfully "found" each other's toys for each other.

Then things got messy - we let each girl decorate their own cupcake. For Rena, this seemed to consist of eating the icing straight out of the bowl. Molly spread hers on first, then licked it off. Isabella just ate the decorations.

Mom and Isabella baked a cake. Isabella really wanted a Hello Kitty cake, just like Katie had. So mom bravely took a photo of Kitty and copied it onto the cake. Came out really well! The cake was meant for the adults, but the kids ended up eating some, too. And, of course, there was lots of mutual jumping on the trampoline to burn off some of the sugar.

Ian, of course, slept through a lot of it and just hung out the rest of the time. This is actually Zach (Rena's baby brother) and Lynn, but hey, most babies look the same.

There were no fights, everyone went home with necklaces, crowns, and balloons, and the house was actually cleaner after the party than before we started cleaning, so I'd call that a success!