Princess Party with Friends

Along with having a surprise birthday Penelope had a surprise party.  I told her that none of her friends could come to her party and so the family one was it.  But I secretly planned a friends party for the next day.  Bob was going to get home early and take her out of the house for a few minutes while all the guests arrived.  But he got a flat tire (he rides his bike home from work) and couldn't make it.  So I had a friend, another princess's mom, come early and take her.  We had to be sneaky and her daughter snuck in the back door while Penelope went out the front.  Penelope was confused as to why she was going with her friends mom with out her friend, but she did it ok.  I also had a hard time convincing Penelope that she should put on princess clothes instead of doing her after school chores.  Luckily we managed it.  All her friends arrived and she had no idea.  When she got home they all jumped out and yelled surprised.  I think she got a little scared.



After letting the girls play for a bit in the castle we made princess crowns.  They were sooooo easy.  All I did was have the color a piece of construction paper (I precut the papers to match the size of a party hat) then I taped a long piece of tulle to a regular party hat and taped the construction paper on top.

I tried to set a princess theme with decorations and music.  Throughout the party we played songs from princess movies.  Bob and I stayed up late the night before trying to get the house to look more like a princess castle.

Next we went into the kitchen and had a fancy little snack.  I cut out pb&j sandwiches in heart shapes and served them on little cake stands.  We also had pink lemonade in fancy plastic cups.

Here is a close up of the cake stands.  I made them.  I love how each one is different.  These doubled as party favors so all the princesses got to take one home.  

Next we did presents, always a party favorite.

Then back to the kitchen for cake and ice cream.  I was originally going to have them decorate their own cupcakes but I decided that would take forever and skipped it.

After that we played a few princess games.  The first was to find Cinderella's glass slipper.  To play we had all the girls leave the room except for one.  Then when one girl was done hiding the shoe everyone else came back and tried to look for it.  The first girl to find it would get to hide it for the next round.  It worked pretty well.  Some people were getting a little sad because it wasn't their turn, but that always happens with kids.

Here are some princesses waiting to find the slipper.

We also played "pin the gem on the crown."  I liked this better then traditional pin the tail on the donkey because there was no wrong spot to pin the gems.  Plus a giant crown also worked well as another wall decoration.

The last game was probably their favorite.  I'm not sure what to call it but I told the girls that Queen Elsa was learning to use her magic and when the music stopped she accidentally froze the kingdom.  So we played "Let it go" and sporadically paused it while all the girls froze.  They loved it!

I'm so glad that her friends could come and that we could make such a fun special birthday for Penelope.  It was kind of a lot of work but it barely cost anything and she only turns 5 once!