Makenna's 4th Birthday - A Princess Tea Party

Makenna LOVES princesses and tea parties so it was only fitting to make her 4th birthday party a princess tea party. And the added benefit was that Makenna got to wear her Halloween costume one more time. We held her party on November 23rd.

A lot of little princess and knights (we had to incorporate the boys somehow) came to the party.  Their first stop was to get outfitted at the "Princess Wardrobe" or "Knights Armory".

(The "Princess Wardrobe" had felt crowns, necklaces, rings, and bracelets)

(The "Knights Armory" had felt swords, felt helmets, and shields)

After the princesses and knights were properly dressed they went off on "The Quest For Lost Things".  Each of the princesses had lost items around our house that had to be found.  The kids had a great time looking all over the house for all of the princess' items.

Next we went on a scavenger hunt for Princess Makenna's lost shoe.  There were clues given from various princess movies and at the end we did indeed find her shoe and candy treasure.

The last game that we played was "Pin the Kiss on the Frog".

We had lots of Princess inspired snacks to eat.

• Rapunzel's Lovely Locks Pasta Salad
• Snow White's Apple Slices (It was brought to my attention that I should have put "non-poisonous")
• TinkerBell's Pixie Dust (Pixie Sticks)
• Cinderella's Pumpkin Muffins
• Jasmine's Magic Carpet Cheese and Crackers
• Belle's Chip and Dip Bowl
• Snow White and The Seven Layer Dip
• Merida's Teddy Grahams
• Ariel's Dinglehopper (Forks and other utensils)
• Mulan's Green Tea
• Aurora's Sleepytime Tea
• Princess Makenna's Pink Tea

And princess tea tea party inspired table decor.

Mad Hatter's Tea Party Table

Beauty and the Beast Tea Party Table

The kids were able to color their own tea cup and then it was time for cupcakes...

Cupcakes were made to look like teacups

and PRESENTS!!

Makenna cannot stop talking about how much fun she had at her fourth birthday and that makes it all worth it. She is getting so big so quick and it was nice to be able to celebrate our not-so-little, little girl with our friends and family.  Happy 4th Birthday to our little princess!!

Princess and Dragon's Halloween

On Halloween 2013 our kiddos dressed up as a princess and a dragon.  Makenna chose to be Sofia the First and since Kyler doesn't really have an opinion yet, he got to be a dragon.  We debated making him a prince but he is more of a seek and destroy type, so dragon fit him well:-)  We were super busy that day and felt like we were running around like crazy.  I think next year we will have to pick and choose which trick-or-treat opportunities we will participate in.

First we went over to Toby's work and the kids got to trick-or-treat around the offices in  his building.  It is a really fun event that is so creative.  You can completely tell how family oriented his company is by having an event like this.

Next we rushed over to downtown Redlands to meet up with friends and family.  I had misread the time that the downtown was holding their event, so unfortunately we didn't have much time to leisurely walk around.  We did however get to spend some time trick-or-treating at the businesses there with our favorite trick-or-treating buddies.  And we got an added bonus when our cutie pie cousins came too.  We had a great group with two dragons, two princess Sofias, an owl, and a sweet little newborn baby (not in the photograph).  And my mom also joined us!!

Then off we headed to eat dinner quickly at our house and make it to Wyatt's house for our last trick-or-treating experience of the evening.  We always have a great time trick-or-treating in Wyatt's community too.  The two older kids had to "take turns" knocking on the doors of the houses and they were in charge of saying "trick-or-treat" for the group since Kyler couldn't speak for himself yet.

Although we did the same amount last year, this year it seemed like we were always under a time crunch for some reason.  Although it was a whirlwind of events this year, it was also a lot of fun.

Pumpkin Carving Time

We finally got to do our pumpkin carving the night before Halloween.  It seems like every year we have good intentions of doing it early but never are able to get it done until last second.  We let Makenna pick, design, and cut her own pumpkin this year.  She didn't really enjoy the cleaning of the pumpkin but really liked getting to design and carve it. And as for Kyler, he had so much fun digging in the pumpkin and pulling out all the guts.  He loves his messes!!