Birthday Party

I love this picture from Karla's birthday party (which was two weeks ago already)! Mammy took it right after everybody sang "Happy Birthday" to Karla and she had just made her wish. She wanted to tell me her wish. As soon as she whispered her wish to me, she told everyone loudly, "I wish for cake." Then she blew out the candles. It was pretty cute. She had been talking about how she mostly just wanted cake for her birthday for weeks. There was excitement around blowing out the candles, etc. because then she would get to eat the cake. But, after we cut her a piece, all she wanted to do was play with the princess figures on top of the cake! She sat there for quite a while making the princesses sing and talk...lost in her own little world. I think she may have had 1-2 licks of the frosting - but NO cake! :)

The party outfit:
Most importantly, lets start with accessories.
*Karla got some stick-on earrings for her birthday and wanted to wear two pairs in each ear at her party. At first I thought it was strange she wanted two pairs per ear...until I realized that my ears are double pierced. It was hard to tell her no, she could only have one pair when I was wearing two!
*Karla wore her Jasmine shoes from Halloween. I'm glad we are getting lots of use out of these. They are here favorite shoes and already look well-worn.
*I told Karla I would try to fix her hair like Jasmine's but surprisingly she just wanted "normal" hair.
*Since I made Karla a special Dora outfit for her birthday last year I felt like I had to continue the tradition. I could not find any type of applique with Jasmine on it. So Mammy helped me find and print a picture of Jasmine on fabric paper that can be ironed on to clothes. I should have taken more time in experimenting with the iron-on because it didn't show up as dark as I would have liked. Karla didn't seem to care though. She had this denim jumper in her closet so I decided rather than making something totally new I would dress up the jumper. I found some fun stuff at Jo-Ann's to sew and glue on.

The party guests:
After last year's big party (over 100 people at our church) we decided to do something small. :) We had 20 family members at our house. Two of Karla's great-grandparents came, all 4 of her grandparents, 3 uncles, 1 aunt, 5 cousins, a great-aunt,a great-uncle and the 3 of us made 20!

The gifts:
Karla got many nice gifts! I've enjoyed playing with new things that aren't Barbie related.

The cake:
It was awesome! I think I may have liked it more than Karla!!


The activities:
We all talked and played for a while. Then we ate lots of yummy food and had cake and ice cream. Then Karla opened her gifts. Before the party she had asked if we could play games at her party and I had planned a few...but forgot once the party got going. Luckily, Karla forgot too and hasn't ever mentioned it since her party. It was a really nice and unusually warm day so we were all able to go outside later in the afternoon and play. We also got to watch Karla learn to ride her new bike. I don't think she liked us all watching her try to do something she wasn't confident she could do so she didn't ride for a long time. She's ready to practice with me or Daddy she said when we have another warmer day.

The day went so fast! I think everybody had fun! I know I did.