Liv's 6th Birthday

We threw Liv's birthday party the Saturday before her actual birthday this year since I was going to be out at my Mom's on her birthday.  She knew she wanted to invite all her friends and I kept asking her what she wanted to do.  She was indecisive for a long while, and they got set on having an Aurora party.  However, she had a bunch of boys from school and her primary class that she wanted to invite to her princess party.  So, we went with a pink and blue theme (remember how the fairies keep fighting over whether Aurora's dress should be pink or blue) and picked gender neutral activities.

First, we had all the kids help us build this huge cardboard castle as we were waiting for people to filter in.  Derek did such a good job cutting out windows and doors for the kids to climb through.

I gave the kids all the duct tape they wanted and markers to decorate.  That was the most fun thing at the party and we left it in the back yard for the kids to play with for the few days following the party until it got destroyed in a rain storm.

Derek and I spent the night before the big party blowing up about 50 balloons.

Inside were stickers with the maleficent dragon on them.  I had a clothes basket full of every sword, light saber, and fairy wand we had in the house and let each kid pick one.  Then, they all went to work "defeating the dragons" aka popping the balloons and collecting the stickers to show their accomplishment.
 We had 15 kids or so there and amazingly we had enough weapons for all just in our little dress up box supply.  Lastly, I gave each kid a can of either pink or blue silly string and let them have their own pink vs. blue dress war in the form of aa big silly string fight in the back yard.  Liv helped me make pink and blue cupcakes.


Then, all week Liv and I made and remade homemade fairy slime for each of her friends to take home.  So fun to play with but really tricky to get the right consistency (at least I thought so).

On her actual big day, she brought commercially packaged (school rule) strawberry donuts to share with her class.  She and I made her magnificent me poster before I left.  It was cute.  She glued pictures of herself doing various activities she likes and wrote in her own hand.  I like...art, I like...performing, I like...sushi etc.
 She shared her poster with her class and Steve and Diane went to help distribute her treat and watch her poster presentation.  Then, Derek picked her and the boy up a little early and took them to play at Chuck E.  Cheese.  He said they literally had the whole place to themselves.  Diane made her a little birthday cake.  I heard all about this over the phone in Chicago, but it seemed like she had a great birthday.