Ella's Garden Party.

Perhaps this post should be titled Another Birthday Party!

Our little girly-girl was bent on having a girly friend birthday party.  The weekend after her birthday she invited a few friends over for a "garden-Springtime" party.  Since it had a garden theme, I decided a morning party would be best (I may have also not wanted the party to consume our entire day...maybe).  My main goal was to keep it simple.  Ella's main goal was to hang out with her friends.  So considering, I think it was a smashing success!

We started our morning decorating terra cotta pots.  I had a couple of different options in mind, but decided that morning that everyone was just going to paint their pot (per the "keep it simple" plan).

 

Of the five friends she invited, three were able to attend, and one friend was able to bring her little sister, much to Addie's delight!   

Nathan originally wanted nothing to do with this gathering, but ended up joining in and enjoying himself (he's used to girls).

Nathan hijacked the camera for a few moments.  He managed to take a couple of nice photos, including this one of our neighbor Kenna.

While the paint was drying, we had a snack of berries, orange juice, and cupcakes.

I'd like to think it was sort of like a "high tea" only with orange juice and in the morning...

(bonus: the flowers from the previous weekend still looked good,  thank you $5 Hy-Vee bouquet!)

I let the girls (and Nathan) finish their fruit first, then it was on to cupcake time.  I've discovered that little girls really like to decorate cupcakes, and it saves me a bunch of time.  So, I just baked the cupcakes, made different colors of frosting, and put the frosting into decorator bags with an assortment of tips.

The girls usually put on way more frosting than I would have, but that's part of the fun.

Evelyn didn' really participate in the party much until the fruit and cupcakes were brought out!

Here's everyone with their finished cupcakes!

Following cupcakes, Ella opened her gifts.  She got some great things: a fashion design notebook, modeling clay, and Beados.  She was very busy that afternoon!

With the remaining minutes of the party, we took the finished pots onto the back deck and planted some zinnia seeds.  Five days later Ella, Nathan, and Addie all had some sprouts!  The stories I've heard from others have sounded as successful! :)

It was a fun morning; Ella loved it, and overall it didn't require much time or effort.  I'm so glad we were able to do this for her, and look forward to more girly parties in the future!