Her birthday celebrations started out prematurely at On The Boarder on Friday night. We were eating dinner and I just had a spur of the moment idea hit me....ask the wait staff to come sing to her!! No, I didn't have a camera since this was totally a last minute thought, but it was kinda fun! She kept watching the waiters singing to other birthday-celebrating-patrons, so when they started clapping and walking over to our table, she was quite surprised! She was a bit shy while they were singing, but it didn't take her long to get over the "quietness" when they put a gigantic bowl of brownie a la mode in front of her!! After we put the kids in bed, Shawn and I stayed up and got the house all decorated and ready for her birthday party. I had been gathering all kinds of MickeyMouse Clubhouse items to use for the party and I was all giddy Friday night, filled with excitement to surprise Reilly with everything on Saturday morning!!
We started the day with the surprise and made her walk downstairs with her eyes closed until she was right in the middle of the "party room" (some days I hate that we don't have a dining room set yet, but then other days I LOVE that we have a fabulously, empty room!!). I bought a 3.5' tall Mickey Mouse cardboard cutout and that's what I stood her in front of before letting her open her eyes!! She was SO excited!! Then we had some breakfast, made by daddy, in the form of the traditional pancakes. He made her a #3 along with a couple stars and a heart. She LOVED them. We let her open presents from us during breakfast and that was super exciting for her. All she has kept asking for was an umbrella and rain boots...so that's what she got! After breakfast, Reilly and daddy headed out to Party City to get LOTS of balloons for the festivities while I stayed home to work on the CAKE. Two hours later, plus two tylenol, I completed my first ever (and possibly LAST ever) character birthday cake in the shape of...MICKEY MOUSE! It was pretty cute, but boy was it a lot of work.
My mom and dad came down to help out with the party and boy was I glad to have them here! I drew big yellow shoeprints on the sidewalk outside with a note that said "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" and a giant arrow pointing Reilly's friends to the frontdoor. While her friends were arriving, we had a MickeyMouse Clubhouse show on the tv for them to watch. They were hardly interested in it! I was so surprised! Instead they wanted to play in the "party room". We started with a game that I didn't know if they would like or not....they ALL LOVED IT! I made them each "mousekespotters" using paper towel rolls and crepe paper. They had to use their mousekespotters to find hidden shapes all over the house. Then they all had to work to find a hidden #3! After that, we played "dont' wake the giant". Willie the Giant is on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show and the object of this game was for them to try to grab a toy that was lying beside the sleeping giant without waking him up!!! Poppi (my dad) was the giant...and he did a great job:) There were some kids that were scared to get near him, but then others were all about it and LOVED the "challenge" of trying to take a toy without him knowing! So cute. Then we played a game where they had to crawl around like doggies and try to help Pluto find his lost bones. Again, they loved this game too!! After the games, we sang Happy Birthday and let Reilly blow the candles out on her cake. While mom was cutting the cake, Shawn and I helped the kids make their own Rainbow Punch by choosing 4 differently colored ice cubes (made with koolaid) and then pouring Sprite over top. They thought this was so fun! After the cake and punch Reilly got to open her presents. She's never had an experience where so many friends came over and all brought gifts, so this was REALLY cool for her! She later told me that this was her favorite part of the whole day :) And then we finished the party with a Mickey Mouse pinata. It was the pull-string kind that is a much safer option for young children :) The party was SO fun and I think all the kids (and parents) enjoyed it too.
After they all left, Reilly actually went down for a 1.5 hour nap! As soon as she woke up, she was ready to get out her first new toy....a neat paint set. Then she wanted to get out a princess dress up set...which she decided to wear for the ENTIRE evening...giant clip-on earrings and all :) She did look pretty darn cute! She had to wear her new Minnie Mouse jammies for bed and sleep wiht her new princess blanket. She also insisted that we pack her new Princess suitcase (that my parents bought her for our Disney trip THREE weeks from now), even though we're not leaving for 20 days! She LOVES that thing!
This morning we started the new tradition that the birthday girl/boy gets to have a piece of their birthday cake for breakfast! Since we don't do too many treats in this house, Reilly was floored by this idea!!! Here a few pictures from the day, and then a short slideshow of the rest. Enjoy!
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