A Princess Birthday Party

Last Saturday we celebrated Maddie's 5th birthday with a princess party. She had decided on the theme shortly after last year's party and it managed to hold the entire year. Her requests: a rainbow cake and a pinata. Easy enough!

Some of the decorations and craft stations:



Maddie helped me make the cake layers. We added pureed fruit to coordinate the colors with the party theme: raspberry to the top layer, strawberries to the middle, and blueberries to the bottom. The blue layer also had a little blue food coloring to pump up the color. The raspberry layer was my favorite. I would love a whole cake of raspberry-flavored white cake with buttercream frosting!

I decorated the outside following a tutorial for icing roses I found on i am baker. Warning: give yourself plenty of time to peruse that site. Her cakes are AMAZING!

The pennant was an idea I saw on pinterest. I made it out of the extra crown felt and two ribbon-wrapped chopsticks. I was out of wooden skewers, so I had to make do.

 I didn't plan on making princess cookies but then I found a really cute cutter set at the store and ended up throwing together some soft frosted cookies off annie's eats. The cookies were definitely the best-flavored sugar cookies I've ever made. But they puffed up a lot and didn't keep their shape as well as my traditional Cook's Illustrated recipe. I think my children might have eaten a dozen cookies between the two of them.

My sassy little birthday girl:

At Thanksgiving my parents brought down a treasure trove of old high school and college dresses (formals and bridesmaid gowns). When Maddie caught me trying one on, she recommended I wear it to the party. I only said yes because it matched the color scheme. Perfect!

Ben and Auntie Jennie did an AWESOME job face painting all ten little princesses and two knights. The girls waited so patiently for their turn. Maddie looking on as her friend gets painted:

Claire and her beautiful Mama, Mel:

Maddie girl and her rainbow:

The girls played "boat" for a while. Of course, Miss Maddie is running the show:

Cuties on the boat:

More face painting (some said Ben and Jennie could start their own business):

Sam gets "BATMAN!!" on his face, bangs pulled out of the way (dang he's cute):

Johnny gets Batman, too:

Johnny & Ben

And then Ben got his turn. Maddie started...

Then all the princesses got involved:

The big reveal! Ben was pretty darn happy with the results, as evidenced below:

Cake! Can't belive my baby girl blew out FIVE candles this year!

And, as per Maddie's one-year request, a pinata!!

I love how Sam is raising his sword in support of Princess Maddie in the background!

More pinata pics:

And some beautiful princess friends wearing their hand-decorated crowns!

A very fun, very princess party! The easiest, smoothest party with the sweetest, best-behaved girls!