The Tinkerbell Party

With the next birthday looming right around the corner (OK, so its more than 3 months away...) I decided it was time to blog the last birthday for the girl. She's already planning this year's party, so these ideas need to come out so new ones can formulate, right?

The lil one was ALL about Tinkerbell this year, so sneaky mom that I am, had a co-worker who was thin, and blond, and a sucker....

Meet Tinkerbell!

The party started, as most parties we host do, with something that everyone could be involved in until everyone had arrived... in this case, beads and pipecleaners... I had the stash already for the most part, including bigger wooden beads for the littlest guests.  Once Tinkerbell arrived (as announced with some jingle bells and a twinkling light that could be seen outside the window:

"She's here!  She's here!"

Apparently I was caught in the act of creating Tink's costume, because my munchkin announced to her and the room at large that she THOUGHT I would be making her a costume, but I DIDN'T (the nerve) so she didn't ahve a costume to wear!  Tink was appropriately sympathetic... and then told us about the sprinting thistles... You know... those little meadow creatures that are always "poking everybody in the petunia."

Well.. you don't want them on your side of the meadow, so you toss them over the hill into the other side... and back and forth until arms are tired or the game gets boring (in this case, about 20 minutes!)

Next, we do some projects:  On the list for today: Bug Fingerpuppets and Ice Painting (note the spring time arriving theme?  First Tinkerbell movie?  eh? anyone? eh?).  Up next, some more games of course... (aka, give my suckers, errrr... family a chance to clean up my mess while I have fun with the kids... )  So we labeled some paper squares with kids names and put all their take home goodies on the back counter, and headed over the the orange foam boards I'd taped to the floor... AKA: the Alligator Crocodile Pit.  You grab a little vial of pixie dust (glitter in a small bottle with water) and balance across the beam, avoiding the snapping croc to deliver the dust Tink needs to get back home.  I was worried that this involved story line would bore all but the oldest kiddoes, what I found was the the tiny ones were taken with the miniature tubes and the challenge of the balance... we let them keep playing, and the big kids that came helped by taking turns being Crocodiles or returning the collected pixie dust to the start for more fun!

Our daycare provider (whom we love and are so fortunate to have in our lives!) made an Everyone Wins! Pin the Tink on Pixie Hollow game for the party (which hung in the girls room for MONTHS!).  All the little goodies that I'd grabbed at 75% off in the Target dollar bins made GREAT everyone wins prizes, plus, each munchkin got to take home the Tinkerbell with their name on it!  They were ecstatic!

And then it was time for cake: The request: Cherry cake with Strawberry Icing, but she was willing to settle for whatever I could find in pink...  The result?  A LOT of pink!

And that was that... we sent everyone off with a goodie bag with a tiny little glitter notebook, tinkerbell markers or crayons, some type of Tink make up/jewelry/hair doo-dad, and some fairies socks... Pretty successful year!