Birthday Party

Tessa wanted an Ariel birthday party this year.  So we had a photo shoot in one of our favorite Ariel costumes.  She makes a beautiful mermaid.

I used one of the pictures to order a personalized invitation off of Etsy.com.  We had a tense day when the listing was removed and I was afraid I would not be able to purchase this invitation.  But, not to worry, after chatting with the shop owner she assured me the invite was still available.  She had only taken it down because Ariel is such an "old" princess and she didn't realize how popular the mermaid still was.  Ariel can't be "old" I remember when her movie came out!  The finished invite is super cute.

This was our first birthday party we hosted outside of the home.  It was so much easier, why have I not done this before?  Our local gym has a great set-up for parties.  They provide this room, table cloths, all paper products and two people to entertain the kids with all sorts of games.  Of course, because I am me, I felt the need to add to the decorations so it would be Arielesque.  Ryan and my parents were great blowing up all these balloons and hanging the streamers.

And we couldn't have a mermaid party without some sort of water so we opted for the addition of a huge water slide.  This was optimistic on our part because it feels like it has rained every single day this summer.  We crossed our fingers, hoped for the best and got lucky.  The rain held off until the end of the party so the kids had plenty of time to slide. 

Hugs for the birthday girl.

These sweet girls all took a break from sliding so I could snap a picture.

Birthday hug from our BFF.

As it started to rain, we headed inside to change into dry clothes and have cake.  This year, Tessa's guest list was so long that we had cake and cupcakes too.  The birthday girl had both, of course!  

Quick picture of Momma with the birthday girl.

And then one of Momma, Daddy and the birthday girl.

And Tessa got to put her handprints on the wall of fame.  She chose to have her hands painted rainbow colored.  I am still amazed that none of the paint ended up on any of the partygoers because they were all crowded around Tessa while this was happening.

After eating cake and handprinting, we still had a few minutes to play games.  We did hula hoop musical chairs which is such a cute game.  It's like regular musical chairs where you take away one hoop while the music is playing, and then the kids all scrambled to be standing inside a hoop when the music stopped.  Whoever was left without a hoop had to step aside.  But, the consolation prize was that the kicked out kids got to hula hoop with the removed hoops so everybody had fun.  Tessa is developing a competitive spirit and beat out all but two of her friends. 

Before we knew it, the party was over and it was time to hand out party bags and say good-bye to our friends.  This is the only trick to having a party at a destination, when your time is up you really have to move out quickly.  We actually knew the boy having his party right after ours so I tried not to take too long.  Of course, both party groups ended up standing around and chit chatting.

The five of us went out to an early birthday dinner at a new Tex-Mex restaurant, Chuy's.  We have a sad lack of decent Mexican food here so, we were glad to see this Texas based chain moving into our area.  It was yummy, even if I couldn't have a margarita.

Then we came home so Tessa could open all of her wonderful presents.  This is one happy birthday girl!