Elle's Birthday Party

The theme for Elle's party was "Little Mother". Her friends were invited to bring their baby doll. The first thing we did was go shopping. The boys lined up the different play food on the couch as the store. I made little stickers of each food item. The girls were given a paper and a set of stickers to make their shopping list. It didn't quite work out like I expected. They put whatever in their basket and then got confused when I asked them if they were getting things on their shopping list. After that we sorted the food into fruits, vegetables, bread and protein. It was on this point they lost interest and left the structured activity. I laid the food out and all the dishes and just let them play house for a little while, which was better received.

While they were playing house I set up the kitchen so they could do some real cooking. I got a angel food cake mix where all you have to do is add water and bake. I measured the mix and split it four ways. For authenticity's sake I let them spoon it into a bowl with measuring spoons. I put a drop of food coloring in the baking dish after they mixed in the water so everybody got a different color cake.


After they were done I let them clean up their workspace with the kitchen wipes. After they were done they read stories to one another and their babies. Garrett needed a diaper change so I passed out his unused newborn diapers to everybody and we all gave our babies a diaper change. Then I gave them each a sheet of stickers I had made of baby things to put into their books. They drew pictures of themselves with their babies. By then the cakes were done baking, but they needed time to cool so we opened presents. Elle got a stuffed doggy, two new baby dolls, a Barbie doll, a bubble blower, and a ballet princess dress. I served up the cake. It was supposed to serve 12 so I figured the girls would want to share since each of their individual cakes would serve 3 people each. When I invited the boys to come have some cake too, one of the girls started crying because she didn't somebody else to eat her cake. Actually she started crying when Michael walked in. I couldn't help but laugh. I imagine to a three year old the prospect that Elle's BIG daddy is going to "share" translates into he's going to eat it ALL. The boys dejectedly went back upstairs and so I cut each girl's cake into four parts and gave each girl a different slice of each color. They didn't finish it all, but they did at least take a bite of each color. Figures. This is the picture that I put on the back of their "Little Mother" booklet. All in all I think the party went well, except at the end when one girl fell off the living room swing and two others were fighting over the teeter toter and one got hit in the face with the seat of the teeter totter and bit her tongue pretty good. Literally it was 2 minutes before her mom showed up. Crying and bleeding. Perfect.