Ooh La La...Bella turns 4!!

Just a fair warning...there will be a lot of pictures...

Bella's birthday is on Apr. 30, so we had a little family celebration that night and then had her friend party on May 5th.  We went out to IHOP for her birthday dinner (she chose where to go, with Paige's persuasive suggestions) and then we opened presents.  This girl was SO excited for her birthday.  Every day she would ask if it was her birthday yet.  So, when the day came...she was "super excited" as she would say.  I wish I took a video of her opening her first gift.  It was from my parents and it was Polly Pockets and it was so cute to watch the excitement and her reaction.  It was priceless and I missed it. 

I did get this cute picture though.

Whenever I try to take Noah's picture, he automatically squints his eyes shut, smiles and says cheese.  I think I've got him trained.  :)

I love this picture...showing off her new dress up shoes.  These are her favorite pants and wears them all the time with any type of shirt.  She loves to pick out her own outfits. 

Since we were having cake at her friend party, I got donuts to stick candles in. 

I love the way she eats donuts...eating only the frosting and the top layer. 

I love sweet little Bella so much.  She is my constant companion throughout the day and she is always so happy and extremely helpful.  She is so loving to everyone and is such a sweetheart.  She is coming out of her shyness more and more and even her teachers comment to me about how much more she is talking in class and participating.  She even says the prayer by herself in her sunbeam class.  She is my sweetie pie and I love her so much.

Fancy Nancy Tea Party Birthday

When I was trying to come up with a theme for her birthday, I would ask her what she wanted and she would say something different each time.  One time it was Dora, one time it was princesses and half the time she didn't know.  So, I came up with the idea of doing a tea party and she liked the idea.  But she has a little friend that she plays with a lot, who is a boy.  So, I was trying to figure out how I could do a tea party and still have David want to come participate and be comfortable.  So, Fancy Nancy came into my head (we love those books) and it just so happens that one of her books is called Explorer Extrordinaire.  And basically the book is about Nancy and her fancy friend Bree who have an explorers club and they talk about how it's fun to go exploring while still being fancy.  So, I incorporated that into the party. 

So on May 5th, we had her party at 2pm.  Garrett was just getting home from the Father/Sons Campout around noon, and he had free tickets from Intel to go see the Avengers.  I told him he could go, but he had to take Noah with him, because I couldn't run a party and take care of Noah.  So, he took him even though I knew he'd be scared, but fortuneatly, he slept through most of the movie.  Crazy, huh?  I had each of my older girls be helpers again to one of the party guests and had Paige's friend Brooke come and help her brother David. They were a big help. 

Bella and I made the butterfly shaped placemats.  And I bought most of the tea cups at goodwill for $1 each.

I made cute little tea/garden hats for them to wear.  I discovered an awesome online store called halo heaven.  They have really cute things for really cheap and they are good quality things.  I found the hats there and these ballerina skirts that they could wear and some of the flowers I used on the hats.  I would highly recommend them to anyone.  So, I hotglued ribbons, flowers and fake butterflies onto the hats.  I thought they turned out cute.

(Everything is fancier in French!)

Our butterfly and flower themed decorations

The buffet table for the tea party

While the guests arrived, I had them coloring pictures of Fancy Nancy, then when everyone arrived we gave out the hats and the skirts and some pearls to wear so they could be fancy.  Then we took pictures and put them in with the Thank You notes.  I love the way they turned out!

Then we had "tea". (Really strawberry lemonade.) David wasn't really into it, so he just watched.  I guess I don't blame him. 

This one is kind of dark, but it is cute. 

Maggie and I in our hats

Lyd and Maggie

After tea, we decorated our goody bags that we would be using for our exploring.  They just decorated the bags with foamies and stickers. 

Then, we went through the book, Explorer Extrordinaire and I handed out the things they'd need to go exploring and what they were supposed to find.  (pretty much just a scavenger hunt)  They each got a notebook and a fancy pen and a magnifying glass. 

 The instructions were in the notebook.  They had to find  and collect 8 things that Paige had hidden around the yard.  Then they were supposed to draw them in their notebooks with their fancy pens, but they weren't really into that.  The things they were supposed to find were fake insects (everything they found was from the Dollar Store), a bird, a butterfly, a leaf and some fake flowers. 

And they are off...

Cute little Ji-Su checking out a bug

Paige helping our neighbor Hollie and Lydia helping Bella

David was definitely more into this.

Then we played "Pass the Butterfly" (Like hot potato)

Then we had cupcakes and the kids got to make their own parfaits.  Yummy!

Present time!!  Bella and Ji-Su

Brooke, Bella and David

Katie and Bella (Katie is Emma's little sister and Emma is Maggie's good friend.)

Our neighbor Hollie, and Bella

All in all it was fun, but I think I should've planned more games and made the party a tad bit longer.  There were so many other fun things we could've done, but I guess they all had fun.