Grace turns 9

We celebrated Grace's 9th birthday over the Labor Day weekend with a surprise party. Daddy was off work and friends had time so it worked out well. We haven't had a "friends" party in a long time b/c it's not very fun when kids say "Why aren't we having cake?" or whisper to each other how weird our food is. Not that kids mean anything by it but it does hurt my kids so we generally avoid that situation. However a friend had a fruit bouquet for her own daughters birthday recently and it was a hit so we copied. :) I got the recipe from here to create this.

(disclaimer: Daddy forgot that I would need pictures and took video instead so I snagged the pic from the website... but everything is the same except we didn't use a baby vase. lol)

It was a great success and I didn't hear a peep about weird or strange food. :D Grace has never had a surprise party before and it was funny to see her reaction. Her friends were actually running a few minutes late (they all arrived together) so when Daddy brought her home from their "errands", it was still just us sans friends. So Tony & Kate hid behind some furniture and jumped out yelling surprise at her. She was so excited, jumping up and down, laughing and giggling over it all. Then as she came in the kitchen to admire the fruit bouquet, her friends quietly came in the door. She turned around and saw one of them, turned around to keep talking to me, then did a double take. She started squealing "I didn't know you were coming! It's like a REAL party!"

We had a fairy theme as she is VERY much into fairies. Not just Disney fairies but fairies in general.

Sooo cute! So without further ado, here are some pictures.

Playing fairy music... like musical chairs only you had to fly and do fairy things while the music was on and freeze in place when it stopped.

Tony did NOT fairy dance, but he did DRAGON dance. lol He actually provided quite a bit of entertainment trying to avoid fairy activities by converting them into dragon things.


Coloring fairy pictures (Tony had a dragon picture, thank you very much)

Food!!! Our menu was Applegate turkey hot dogs, green beans and cassava chips. Not what we have typically but all rules are subject to bending during parties.

R. being silly. She is the one who inspired the fruit bouquet in the first place as she is not able to have refined sugar.

M & J enjoying some of those chips

M, J & R swinging on the indoor swing while my kids finished their huge amount of food.

Present time!

Daddy's favorite part of anything.... getting to play with tools.

Daddy is the center of attention while everyone waits impatiently for the fairies to be released.

And for the rest of the day, Grace played with fairies. We ended the day by letting her watch a Tinkerbell movie. This is how all the toys stayed during the entire movie... well except for the LPS she's holding. That one laid down most of the movie. lol

I saved my gift for her to give on her actual birthday. It was a fairy house book.

She has one already so this was just another in the series. Building fairy houses inspires imagination and creativity. Plus it's just plain ole' fun! So this is what she did for the rest of THAT day... and yes, I did help. :) It sure is fun having a girly-girl!!!