A Princess Party

Brooke wanted a Princess Party for her 3rd birthday. She fell in love with "Cinderella plates and bowls" while at Zurchers party store one day and it's all she could talk about. Since her cousin Breanne is only 38 hours younger and also adores princesses, my sister and I thought we'd combine the celebration to officially put an end to their "terrible twos". Tara is pregnant and not feeling the best, so I offered to host the royal gala.

Princess Brooke and Princess Breanne dressed up in their finest evening attire and delivered the invitations to the royal event.

Brooke holding up three fingers to show us just how old she is getting.
Brooke and Breanne sitting in front of their balloon castle anxiously waiting to open the loot fit for a king.
Thanks Grams and Pa for the big box of never ending presents.
After the gifts were opened the balloons were released and oh what fun there was to be had!

Can you even imagine the static in the air when 400+ balloons are being jumped in, dove under, bounced on, and rolled between? Brooke's hair shows just a little of the electricity in the air.

Happy Birthday Brooke!

Since two girlies shared the same cake, I decorated one side for Princess Brooke and the other side for Princess Breanne. Brooke's side of the cake...complete with a winding brook. Who needs to wish upon a star when you have three candles to blow out?

Breanne's side of the "mountain"...
complete with Sleepy Beauty,
Belle,
Snow White,
and Cinderella
(to match Brooke's must have Cinderella plates and bowls).

Five beautifully, edible princesses were carefully taken off the cake mountain and served with a scoop of ice cream to each and every princess that attended the celebration.

We told them to pick up their plates and eat their princess,

but it was kind of hard for them to comprehend taking a bite of Belle's dress. So, when they were full of cake, we washed the frosting off and gave each girl a set of gowns for their princess. A fun time was had by all.

Hands down the best (CRAZIEST and LEAST AGE APPROPRIATE) gift of the birthday was given to Brooke by mom and dad. Since Christmas when all three older siblings received a DSi, Brooke has spent a lotof time watching the other kids play and learning to play a DS. However, since she is only 3, I tell them to keep them out of Brooke's reach so she doesn't ruin their DS. If EVER left within reach, Brooke LOVES to take pictures, draw funny sketches, make cute recordings, etc. with the DS. So, when her birthday rolled around we had two options....buy a bunch of junk that she doesn't need and that will end up scattered all over "the basement" within a month's time......OR.......buy her one nice gift that we KNOW she'll LOVE and play a lot with (even though if I heard of any other mom buying a DSi for their 3 year old I'd call them looney!!!). What did we do?

After much deliberation and on-line investigation of toddler oriented DS games....Brooke is now the proud owner of her very own DSi. Have you ever seen a kid so happy to have a blue stylus in their hand?!?!

Now she can hang with the rest of them (funny that they are all looking at it like they've never seen a DS before...or maybe they just wish that they too had a Dora game).

As crazy as this gift may seem, on February 7th at 11:30 pm everyone else had gone to bed while I was up decorating the cake for the upcoming family/friend party. Everyone that is except for Brooke who was still wide awake and watching me frost princesses. Out of nowhere she said, "Thank you mommy". Wondering where this heart felt thank you came from and what she was referring to, I said, "Thank you for what?"

"For my present", she replied,

"What present?" I questioned.

"For my DS," she answered.

At that moment, I knew I had made the right decision, looney or not.