We invited five girls and three are coming, plus Colin’s sister Kim.  Maggie’s counting her among her invitees (unlike the moms of the other girls), and I’m not sure how Kim’s going to react to Maggie’s plans to have her sit at the table with them.  Hopefully she’ll love it!  All the girls have been invited to wear their “princess dresses,” whatever that means to them, and Maggie doesn’t yet know that Kim will be coming as Snow White!  It’ll be interesting to see whether Kim comes “in character” (she used to be various princesses on Disney cruise lines so she really knows how it’s done) and whether Maggie will be excited to see Snow White or disturbed if Kim insists that her name is Snow White.  Four is such an unpredictable age….sometimes.

We’re serving “Pink Pink Lemonade,” as Maggie calls it.  I bought a can of pink lemonade concentrate and another of raspberry lemonade concentrate and asked her which she wanted, and she said she wanted the pink one.  Later I explained that raspberry lemonade is pink, too.  Then she got all excited and said we could mix them and then we’d have “pink pink lemonade!”  We’ll have peanut butter and jam sandwiches, cut into heart shapes, and cucumber sandwiches, cut into triangles.  And I made chocolate covered strawberries this afternoon, so I think they’ll like that (moms too!).  And we have a honeydew melon and grapes in the fridge, so if there’s time I may make melon balls and skewer them and the grapes with toothpicks for fun.

Yesterday I baked the cake, which I have yet to decorate.  My mom made me doll cakes when I was growing up and I adored them!  She gave me her cake pan this summer when we were visiting and now Maggie wants one.  I’m excited and nervous–I’m not half the cake decorator my mother is, and that’s not false modesty.  But I would love to make Maggie feel as good as I did when I got those beautiful cakes and it’ll be a fun challenge.  I want it to look something like this one from my fourth birthday, only in pink.

The one thing Maggie asked for specifically is a pinata.  I know, it doesn’t seem very princess-y to hit a candy-filled container with a bat while blindfolded, but Degen had one and Dora the Explorer had one, and she wants one.  And guess where I found a PRINCESS PINATA… At the dollar store!   How could I say no when I could give her her dream for $1?  So, we’re going to play musical statues and hit the pinata as activities (Maggie wanted to do “pin the tiara on the princess” earlier, but I’m hoping she’s forgotten about that).

I’ve got pink and white streamers for decorating the deck in the morning and I talked to the florist at the grocery store this morning and she said that they arrive at 6am, so we might do some helium balloons with those streamers if I’m feeling particularly relaxed.  If not, no one will know they were a possibility.

The favors will be the candy and toys (dollar store necklaces, ring pops, fun size twix and reeses, and some dollar store princess watches) from the pinata, plus a couple of princess-y accessories set next to their places at the table.  We’ve got dollar store tiaras (4/$1) and plastic jewel earrings (also 4 pairs/$1) and scepter wands (8/$1).  And I’ve still got to have Maggie decorate those white paper bags for the girls to take their things home in.  I hope I don’t forget!

I still haven’t talked to Maggie about what she’s going to wear for her princess outfit, though I’m counting on her going for her fairy princess costume from last Halloween or for a church dress.  And Degen protests that he’s definitely NOT a prince, though he does want to participate in the birthday festivities…so we’ll see how that goes.  I think Heidi will happily put on a pretty dress.  Oooohh…maybe I should do light pink icing on that cake since we’re having princesses in fancy dresses over.  I wonder if that’s why Mom chose yellow for my cake–I’ll bet it washes out easier.

I also need to make a Happy Birthday banner for the kitchen for Saturday (a Bushman tradition, those banners), plus maybe a sign for the front door for Friday.   And I suppose this evening I could cut some flowers in the garden for the tables. And I should set out chairs for the adults on the deck as well as the kids.  And I should have Colin help Maggie pick out a playlist on his iPod of music for the musical statues game.  Oh!  And I just read this idea to pre-scoop ice cream into paper cupcake liners that I may do.  I hate scooping ice cream under pressure.

Hopefully I’ll remember everything.  I’m planning on taking a photo of all the girls together in their princess finery and then printing the photo out and having Maggie help me write thank you notes on the back.  But if I’m going to do that, I have to remember to TAKE the photo!

Here’s my party schedule:

Kids arrive, play musical statues

Sit down at tables: tiaras, earrings,

Snow White arrives: lemonade & sandwiches

Pinata

Cake and ice cream

Open presents

Hopefully that will take up our hour and a half and the girls will go home happy and content.

For those of you researching for princess party ideas online like I was, here are some other good and inexpensive ideas I came across, but that I’m not going to do…

Favors: glitter, feather boas, lip balm, light colored nail polish, princess stickers

Activities: Make crowns, decorate cupcakes, play princess dress-up with goodwill prom dresses and mom’s accessories (or make it a relay!), string candy necklaces, practice walking with books on your head like a princess, build cookie castles (like gingerbread houses)

Food: cheese cubes on toothpicks, cream cheese and jam sandwiches, tuna sandwiches, anything cut into a heart or crown shape with cookie cutters, frosted sugar cookies with sugar glitter, olives (4 year old princesses look lovely with hands bedecked in olives), cupcakes, castle cake

Decorations: red carpet (made of tulle or felt or tissue paper or plastic tablecloth), “welcome to the castle” or “Last Name Kingdom” sign at entrance, tulle canopy

Halloween used to be in my top three holidays (behind Christmas and my birthday). I loved dressing up! But sometime since college I’ve lost my excitement. I finally have an idea of why my mother always seemed less than enthusiastic. Between the energy expended to dress the kids, my expanded post-baby body self consciousness, and the lack of widely available, modest, flattering, affordable women’s costumes, I’m about ready to put on my mom uniform of jeans and a T-shirt and leave the fun to the kids for the fourth year in a row. For me, it’s a little depressing to see otherwise sane women using Halloween as an excuse to dress provocatively. But I haven’t seen much between that option and a huge ugly gorilla costume on the store shelves.

When I asked my out-of-the-box husband what I should be, he started out with “It would be funny if you were…” To which I blurted the reply “I don’t want to look funny, I want to be pretty!” He said “Great, be a princess!”

Isn’t there anything slightly more creative than a princess, with more coverage than the average party-store mini-skirted pirate costume, less dark and scary than a witch or gorilla, that doesn’t cost me my Christmas budget, and that I can look pretty in? I know it’s a challenging list of requirements, but I’d really love to re-discover my love of Halloween dress-up.