turning six

We tossed around A LOT of birthday party ideas, but Brooke finally settled on a princess tea party. One sleepless night I started searching amazon for all things tea party.  I found the cutest white gloves, tiaras, flower garlands, and paper tea cups.  I really wanted actual tea cups, but couldn't justify spending $30+ dollars on them.  I also found really cute fans that the girls could paint before the actual tea party began.  When I showed my amazon cart to Brooke the next day, she literally squealed with excitement. She loved everything, but made the same comment about having real cups, haha.  I explained that they were pretty expensive, and she understood.

I love how it all came together! I had the coral plates from a baby shower I hosted, and although they are disposable plates, I had washed them after the shower because they were just too cute and I had spent like $25 on 20 plates because they were the only coral ones I could find. I'm really glad I did, because they tied in perfectly with the flowers and the designs on the tea cups. 

Brooke and I set the table a few days before the party so that I could make sure everything was in order.  As I laid out each pair of gloves, I got pretty excited for the party.  Brooke loved each detail, and I was excited to see the look on the other girl's faces. We wanted to keep the party small so that she could spend time with each of her guests, so we only invited her cousins Kinley and Aubrey, and her school friend Jerzey, 

On the hutch, we created a tiara station where the girls could each choose a tiara based on their color preference.  I had multiple of each color, so they could all match if they wanted. 

We also set out the party bags which had a friendship bracelet (lovingly made for each girl by Brooke), a few treats, and space for their gloves, tiara, and fan.

Brooke wrote each name, and I especially love the "fancy Y's" she is totally into.

I wrapped her gifts a few days in advance as well so that she could get excited about everything :) I had ordered her a new scooter that was guaranteed to deliver by June 7th, but I realized at almost midnight on the 7th that it was never delivered!  I tracked the shipment, and the delivery date changed to the 11th.  I was pretty ticked because I only had 2 little things for Brooke, but you know what, she did't even notice since she had gifts from Nay Nay and Papa, Jeffrey, and Kimberly as well.  We let her open the gifts from Nay Nay and Papa the night before so they could FaceTime with her.  They gave her a huge whale inflatable for the pool, a stack of Mercy Watson books, and a craft kit to color piggy banks. Jeffrey and family sent her a princess cook book, which she loved.  She had to look at every single page before setting it aside.  Kimberly and family sent her a huge science kit with 68 experiments!  It will definitely be a great summer activity. Colby gave her a new summer dress that we picked out together, and Kevin and I gave her new headphones (a need since her old pair broke), and a Twisty Pet that she went nuts over.  I knew it would be a hit, but I didn't quite anticipate her excitement for it.  She likes her one JoJo bow, and the Twisty Pet was of JoJo's dog, BowBow, haha.

I did tell her that we had one more thing coming for her, but that it would arrive a few days late.  She desperately needed a new scooter since she outgrew hers, or else I would have just kept the gift for another holiday, haha.

The party started at 10 AM, and we began with the painting of the fans.  I knew they would take a while to dry, and the girls were so meticulous in their painting.

After they painted, we glued rhinestones along the outside edges of the fan to glam them up a bit.  The girls were all SUPER excited, which made me happy :)  Before we moved onto the tea party, it was time to paint their nails.  Melanie and Bev helped me with this part so we could get everyone's nails done quickly.  

Finished fans, painted nails, tiaras on, and ready for the tea party!!

The girls sat at the table with their gloves on (hopefully not destroying their freshly painted and dried nails), while the adults served the food.  Per Brooke's request, we had pasta salad, strawberries, pineapple, raspberries, carrots and ranch dip, and Hawaiian rolls.  We also ordered pizza for the adults, which the kids decided they wanted as well :) 

Brooke was cracking me up with her pinky in the air while she sipped her pink drink (7-UP, Pineapple juice, and pink lemonade powder).  While the girls were finishing their food, I asked them trivia questions about Disney princesses.  They were all totally into it, which was pretty cute.

Then it was time for the presents!  Brooke was spoiled as usual, but I love that she jumped up to hug the giver of each gift.  She received a whole bag of goodies from Jerzey, including bath bombs, new sunglasses in a cool case, a pink fan that she is obsessed with, and some princess hand sanitizer.  Grandma and Papa gave her a super cute umbrella and a sewing kit.  The Peacocks gave her these little dolls called Popteenies, and she was so excited to check them out!

We had to quickly move on to cookie cake because we had already texted Jerzey's mom to come 30 minutes after the scheduled party ending time.  Her cookie cake was adorable, and although it was overpriced, it was one less thing I needed to worry about :) We ordered it the week before and Brooke was excited that they allowed her to hand select the frosting colors and what she wanted the words to say.  We're not huge cake fans in our house, so a cookie cake was absolutely perfect!  We sang to this sweet girl and watched her make a wish and blow out her 6 candles.  It really is so crazy to feel like time is flying by, but I am doing my best to fill these years with happy memories and a lot of love.

After Jerzey left, Auntie Mel Mel helped Brooke figure out her new dolls, which came out of little party popper canisters filled with confetti. They also gave her a whole playset for the dolls, so the girls were having a great time. I had to keep Colby away because he just wanted to mess with all the tiny pieces.

Somehow the girls ended up on the trampoline, which led to water balloons out there, which led to us getting in swimsuits to head to the pool.  As I was helping Brooke into her swimsuit, I asked her if she had a fun party.  She responded that it was the best party EVER, and was just being so grateful and sweet about the whole thing. Not that she is normally ungrateful, but I just appreciated that she so openly expressed her appreciation for something that took a lot of time and energy on my part.

It was such a fun afternoon with everyone!  Our family would definitely not be complete without our Brookie in it, so we enjoyed having a day to celebrate her :) But man, was I tired at the end of the day.  I was speaking in church the next day, so I was glad that I had written my talk earlier in the week!