Happy Birthday Dear Abigail!

Abigail turned 5 a few weeks ago. The first thing she said on her birthday was "So, when do I get to meet my Kindergarten teacher?" I have been telling her that she will get to start Kindergarten when she turns 5. I love how kids take things very literally. :) She wants to go to school like Austin and Allison so badly. I told her that she is not allowed to grow up and go to school. It will make me sad. I then asked her "who is going to help me take care of Asher once you go to school?" She said I was going to have to do it by myself. :( I almost start crying every time I think about it. I am sure I am going to be a wreck come August. You would think this school thing would get easier with each kid but it just reminds me how fast they are growing.

I love birthdays but I hate birthday parties. They are a lot of stress, work and money. But we started a tradition with Austin that we have kept with Allison and now, Abigail. We throw a big 5th birthday party with friends, a pinata, the whole 9-yards. This year Abigail had been talking a lot about Minnie Mouse so starting in January (yes! January) I started planning a Minnie Mouse party. Thank goodness for Pinterest...it made getting ideas a lot easier!

Abigail loved it and so I guess that is all that matters.

Abigail's Dress

I saw this dress on pinterest and wanted to try to recreate one of my own. It sucked! To say the least. :) I am not great at sewing. My mom had to tell me step by step how to do it because I am too lame to follow a pattern. In the end it turned out cute. Abigail LOVED it! So that made it worth it. However, I am still not sure it was worth the $20 I saved to make it. :) I opted to leave the Minnie off the skirt at the last minute due to time-constraints. I figured it would be more versatile without it anyway. :)

The Ears

I found this Minnie Ear tutorial on Pinterest. I thought they were so cute and had to make them for the party. They were a little time consuming (mainly because I made 24) but they weren't very difficult. They ended up being about $.75 each so they were totally worth it. Abigail's head is weird shaped so headbands always fall forward on her. I forgot to clip it in place so in most of the pictures you will see it is falling forward. Oh well.

The Food and Decorations

We chose to have it out in the garage hoping for a beautiful day. We got our wish and it was probably one of the most beautiful days of the year so far. The decorations were minimal but enough to make it "girly" and festive.

The treat bags

The cupcakes

This cake was thrown together at the last minute with leftover cupcake batter. I hate writing on cakes!

My sister brought some of her glass jars and filled them with candy the colors of the party. They add so much to the table. :) I also made Minnie caramel apples. I have wanted to make them since our last trip to Disneyland but never had an excuse until now.

I wanted to cover the entire wall with streamers but when I saw my husbands face when I told him that, I said we could space them out a little. :)

The Games

I separated the kids into about 4 groups and they rotated through each of the games. The pinata we did at the end as a group.

Here is the pinata I made. The tutorial is here and it was super easy and cheap. It cost about $2 to make but about another $20 to fill. :) I think it would probably be easy enough to make other shapes as well.

This is the kids making minnie/mickey mouse suckers....like these in this picture...but I didn't get any pictures of the finished product.

This is the "balloon room" where we just had lots and lots of balloons and they played freeze dance. The picture isn't that great. Austin and his cousin Taylor were in charge of this room and they did a great job.
Chris' grandpa said that we should use his train for the birthday party so we couldn't say no. ;) All the kids couldn't wait for it to be their turn to ride. It was definitely the favorite of the party. Even my kids who ride it all the time act like it is the first and only time they will ever ride on it even though they ride it ALL THE TIME. ;) I am glad.