Emerson's 4th birthday party

Emerson started talking about her 4th birthday over the summer. Seriously. So it has been a long time coming. From the beginning she was very clear about the fact that she wanted a "jump jump" (bounce house) and to be a princess. We decided that it would be a costume party so that her friends could dress up however they wanted but that she would most definitely be a princess.

I was determined to do this party as much on the cheap as possible. Perfect example...I came up with the party colors of pink, purple and orange because I had plates and napkins in those colors already in my pantry as left overs from other events. Done.

The main event at the party was definitely the bounce house. I knew that we needed other activities because everyone would not jump at the same time. I set up pumpkin decorating and halloween color pages for the kids to do. We also had our playset and sandbox all cleaned up a ready to go.

When it came time to send out invites this year I asked Emerson who she wanted to invite. She did pretty good coming up with a list of her closest friends. The list consisted of all girls and two boys (not including baby brothers). This means that at the party we had 6 princesses, 4 fairies, a ballerina, a girl owl, a dinosaur, red iron man and a cute little giraffe. Can you imagine all the tulle and glitter?

The only two little boys at the party did not know each other. They are friends from different circles. The funniest thing happened. One of the boys was jumping and came out of the bounce house. He spots the other little boy sitting at a table and points to him and yells, "Hey, you. Boy. Orange boy. Come in here with me, boy." And the funniest part was that the other little boy totally ran in to play with him. Like they had to stick together amongst all the little girls. It was hilarious.

all dressed up and ready to go

happy to be a giraffe

the kids tables

food table minus the hot dog mummies that were in the oven.

pumpkins to decorate

ashton kept sneaking to the food table to reach up and grab whatever he could.

look at all the tulle!

time to eat.

one friend came in a full sleeping beauty wig. And totally wore it the entire time. It was awesome.

Even the little ones had cupcakes.

had to get a shot of the back of ashton's precious costume. He left the head piece on the entire time like it was no big deal:)

This shot is so funny because this daddy came with two snow whites. One of them stripped off her costume half way through the party so dad stuck it in his back pocket. No big deal.

the sandbox got lots of use.

the playset got lots of use.

Again, the tulle!

and I had to include this sweet picture of Ashton and grandmom.

I realize after going through the pictures that I never got a picture of our precious food creation- hot dog mummies. They were hot dogs wrapped up in breadstick strips with a little face peeking out. It was really cute and the kids ate them up. I also never got a picture of the entire party set up or a family picture of all 4 of us. Oh well. There is always next year.

The most important thing is that Emerson had a blast. We opened presents as soon as everyone left and when she was finished I told her that we would play with them tomorrow but it was time to take a bath. She looked at me with sad eyes and said, "Mommy, I am so tired. Can I just go to bed now?" It was 6:45. And she totally crashed. And slept until almost 8am. I take that as a success.