A Tea Party

This year, it is my quest to be the awesomest birthday party mom ever.  I started with Bria's 10th birthday party in October, and Chloe's 8th birthday party a couple weeks ago was my second stab at the awesomeness.  Once I do Sophia's 5th birthday party in July, I might be dead, so this is probably going to be the last year of awesomeness.  But I think that it was worth it.

Anyway...Chloe has been wanting to do a doll tea party ever since she got her American Girl doll, so that's what she did.  Alas, I forgot to take pictures of the invitations before I handed them out (probably because, as usual, I procrastinated them until the very last second), but they were really cute.  Trust me.

We went with kind of a cupcake-ish theme, so the favors were made to look like cupcakes, sort of.  Chloe really, really wanted to give the girls an outfit for their dolls, so I made each doll a jacket, scarf and hat.  The hat is like the cupcake (do you see it, or was I delusional in thinking these actually looked like cupcakes?), and inside the box are the jacket and scarf, as well as some lip gloss, a notebook and (of course) some bendy bandz.

I'll have to take some pictures of my girls' dolls wearing their ensembles and post them later...I can't believe I haven't done that yet!

The cake was really tall.  Just for fun.  You'll notice there are no candles on it.  I bought some, and I must have thrown them away with the grocery bags when I got them home, because I couldn't find them anywhere.  Thank goodness for my friend Mary Fran who is prepared for anything, because she had way cuter candles for the cake anyway and saved the day by bringing them.

We started the party by taking pictures of each girl and her doll.  I quickly edited them and printed them out while Joel supervised cupcake frosting in the kitchen.  These are the pictures of my girls and their dolls:
The Birthday Girl and Rebecca
Bria and her doll, Bri Bri (hers is a look-alike, so of course she named her after herself).

Sophia and Lainie.

So, like I said, the girls were all in the kitchen frosting some cupcakes while I dealt with photos.  They had a lot of fun doing that, and I was pretty impressed with their creativity, too!

After the cupcakes were finished, we moved into the dining room, where they had a blast scrapbooking the pictures of themselves and their dolls.  Seriously, if you want an activity that they don't get sick of quickly, try it sometime.  They lasted over a half hour, which is like a miracle at any birthday party I've ever put on!
The "tablecloth" is just a piece of fabric I had in my stash, and the colors worked well with the party.  Here's a closer look at the tissue paper balls I made to hang over the table.
After scrapbooking, we played a balloon game (which I don't have pictures of) in which they each took turns trying to gather as many balloons as possible while also holding their doll.  They had one minute to do it, and it was hilarious.  At the end, Joel asked if he could have a turn to see if he could beat the winner, who had managed to hold 9 balloons plus her doll.  When he asked for a doll to borrow, he got ELEVEN of them, and good sport that he is, managed to hold all 11 dolls and still gather 10 balloons on top.  You've never heard such squeals of delight.

Here are all the dolls (minus Chloe's) enjoying all of the festivities.  I was totally shocked that all but one girl actually owned an American Girl doll.  Chloe assured me that this was the case, but I didn't believe her until they all walked in my front door.  And the one girl that didn't have a doll?  Her mom told me that she has never had a doll because she prefers to play with dragons and trucks.  Hence, the teddy bear.

Chloe with her cake (now bedecked with super cute candles).  I just love this girl...isn't she adorable?
Chloe opening her gifts with Rebecca at her side.
Oh dear, she got a Pillow Pet.  I was trying to avoid that, but oh, well!  She loves it!

This time I didn't have to make up games on the fly at all, thanks to the scrapbooking  being such a hit.  And they just played with their dolls at the end.  It was a successful party, if a bit exhausting (and I'm talking about the three days of straight sewing...even though I'd had the fabric for over a month!).

Anything for my girl, though.

Happy Birthday, Chloe!