Tangled Birthday Party!

We have one more week of four and then our girl will be five.  Five.  I can't hardly believe it.  We had her party a week early this year (fantasy football draft complications--I know) and it's already over.  Now this next weekend, it will be just a quiet little gathering at home as we celebrate the day of her birth.  I can't believe we are already half way to ten.  A third of the way to fifteen, a quarter of the.....anyhow, you get the idea.  It's just amazing how time flies so fast. 

My mom took her to Disney on Ice last year and the Rapunzel braid was her choice souvenir.  Peanut was handed down the Tangled crown from her cousin, so score in both those departments. And funny enough, she didn't even wear either during the party.  Too busy having too much fun. 

I'm thinking this photo of Little Brother is gold for adolescence black mail. 

These senior picture poses......totally all on Peanut.  It's her new pose whenever the opportunity arises.  It makes me smile.

But, back to the party.  It was such fun!  I kind of totally convinced Peanut of the Tangled theme this year.  Okay, there was no arm twisting or anything illegal, but let's just say I totally talked up the fact that if we did a Tangled birthday party, we could light off sky lanterns.  And there was absolutely NO convincing needed after that.

And our girl loves Tangled.  She knows the songs by heart (except when she fills in the words with her own 'cause she can't remember) and she was deciding which boy at her party she would demand convince to play Eugene--AKA Flynn Rider--you know, so they could dance at the end.  Ahem.

That's our girl.  Because dancing =  getting married.

We did a nacho bar (complete with drippy, yummy, no real food whatsoever nacho cheese) and my wonderful mama made her always amazing fruit platter.  We had the standard cupcakes and ice cream and then because we were waiting for it to get dark for the lanterns, we also had a campfire at the end.  And no campfire is complete without s'mores.   So s'mores it was to close out the evening.

And lest you think I came up with all this stuff on my own, as I've said before, I can copy the heck off of someone elses ideas.  Thanks to Pinterest, there are no shortage of ideas.  Period.

Most of this stuff was very inexpensive thanks to the dollar store and Joanne's coupons and sales.  The cupcakes I made myself, the sign was from an old fence piece my parents had and paint I already had on hand, and the rest was just card stock, yarn, and a little creativity on the computer. 

Oh, and of course the sky lanterns.  They were a little pricey with the shipping (but quite honestly they really aren't terribly expensive in the grand scheme of things--I am just flat out cheap).  However, we do say NO a lot to our girl, just because we have such tight finances (we don't even have smart phones, people).  So when birthdays roll around, we do tend to indulge her a little.  And our Peanut is none the wiser--although she is a smart cookie and I am sure she will fully understand shortly.  But that is another post for another day. 

The sky lanterns worked just like they were supposed to.  Although we didn't let them go as they are designed to.  We tied them off with string, which the instructions say DO NOT DO.  Although we had a pretty wide open area to light them off in, my parent's neighbors have some big tall fir trees in the distance and we just felt it was way too much of a liability to let these lighted lanterns off on their own.  So that made the process a little more difficult than we anticipated and Hubs likened it to flying a flaming kite.  So that's fun.  I thanked Hubs more than once that evening for making my hair brained {Pinterest} ideas come to life.  I am always doing that.....coming up with some grand scheme and expecting my husband to figure out how to make it work.  Although my mom is the same way, so I know I come by it quite naturally.  And what's a girl with great ideas supposed to do? And we have to keep our husbands on their toes, yes? 

It was a great, fun day.  I got a little teary as we said goodbye to my mom and dad that evening.  Happy tears.....very much happy tears.   I am We are just so blessed.   We are so happy to be just minutes away from my parents and to have such a wonderful extended family and friends that are there for us.  I am so glad that Peanut and Little Brother have that, because you simply can't put a price on it.

Life is about relationships.  And you have to make the most of them. 

Next Up:  She starts her last year of preschool this Friday, where Miss Independent will become even more independent.

But I don't even know if that's possible.