Although she doesn't actually turn 5 until Friday, Annabel had her 5th birthday part on Suday.
Birthday are a big deal when you are five, so she was very involved with the party from the earliest planning stages. We started talking about it more than a month ago.
Annabel considered various themes, among the early favorites where "Princess" (last year's theme), "Zoo" and "Pirate". She liked the idea of a treasure hunt which seemed to favor pirate. Sometime around that point, it occurred to me that I actually have a skull and crossbones sticker in the garage. I mentioned it to her and she and I agreed would go nicely on a treasure chest.
Then the following week Kristin told me one evening that Annabel had changed her mind and wanted to change the theme to "Butterflies".
"Oh," I remember saying. "What about the treasure hunt?"
"She still wants the treasure hunt," Kristin says. "She wants to hunt for Jewels."
"So its Butterflies and Jewels?" I asked.
"Butterflies and Jewels." Kristin said.
And so it was.
We had the party at home. We got a large inflatable Butterfly Jumpy House for the driveway. Jumpy houses are great. They are like energy sponges. They leave the kids a rare harmless and exhausted state. Often they will fall asleep in the car on the way home from Jumpy parties.
The jumpy arrived at 8:00am and it was a party right away. The thing it HUGE. It was about 15 feet taller than the house and visible from miles around. The girls were jumping around immediately after it was inflated and were in an out of it all day.
Around 10:30, Scott and I (an old friend of mine who was visiting) went out into the backyard to hide buuterflies and jewels in the garden.
The kids arrived around 11:00. After an hour of jumping and pizza, Kristin sat them down on the diveway. It was amazing to watch her actually control a group of 20 kids. She gave them the rules (no running, no pushing) and then let them at it. The kids descended into the yard, picking stuff up as they went. Hidden items outnumbered kids by at least 10:1, so everyone found something.
Then it was upstairs for cupcakes. This was annother Annabel request. She wanted cupcakes instead of a cake. Kristin and Scott spent the better part of the day on Saturday baking them. I can personally attest to their deliciousness.
I was very proud of the way Annabel acted. She was a kind host. She never whined or acted bratty or entitled. I even overheard her at one point checking on Tess, het best friend to make sure that she was having a good time.
She really loved it when we sang happy birthday to her. The look on her face in the picture of her just before blowing out the candles really says it all.
Kristin put up a very thorough photo gallery here. Here are a few other shots.
