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The Flower Girl Birthday Party

I'm just cleaning up from Elisabeth's party--her 5th birthday. Actually her big day is tomorrow, but she has obligations (already! piano and ballet) so today was her party with friends. She's been saying for nearly 6 months that she's going to have a flower girl birthday party. How does one think of these things? She will be a flower girl in a few weeks in my cousin's wedding. So then I had to figure out how to have a flower girl party. Thanks to my John's mom and some good friends, we pulled it off. I told Elisabeth I had 2 favorite parts (yes, my favorites come first). The preparation and anticipation was delightful. A few weeks ago we did some shopping (before the hurricane!) and then Elisabeth picked out games to play (not flower girl related). Today she was hanging streamers and putting pieces of streamers in chairs. She put a little candy dish on an end table and said, "It's just like Grandma Virginia's!" She had gotten some very special fairy stickers in a card from Grandma Marva (yes, I let her open cards early!) and she put them on the goody bags for the party guests. She was so sweet and happy and excited. It was fun.

My next favorite part was a few priceless moments at the party when all 5 girls were walking down the "aisle" and tossing tissue paper flower petals in the air. None of them had ever been flower girls, but they were all stars. They carried little baskets and didn't want to let go of them for the rest of the party. We had a few disagreements about who got more flowers or more flower petals or who would go first down the aisle. But the last of those was resolved when they all decided to go down the aisle together. So cute. The rest of the party was cake (yum!), games that were less than successful, and several princess related gifts. No meltdowns, thankfully. When you only schedule 90 minutes for a party it doesn't leave too much time for that. It was a good number of girls too--4 girls plus Elisabeth. When they all left there was quite a mess, but Elisabeth quickly helped with the promise that she could take her gifts out of the packaging.

Elisabeth's favorite parts were the game called "Chef" which involved a blindfold, a large bowl of popcorn, a serving spoon, and a bowl to put the popcorn in. All the girls did remarkably well, so I'm not sure the blindfold did much good. Her other favorite part was the cake, which she ate rapidly and with relish.

Where was Henry during all this? A friend took him to the park for me. He came back asleep!

Here's what I learned: girls ages 4 and 5 cannot pass things around in a circle very well. No, they can't really do it at all.

Here's also what I learned: birthday parties are fun, but what I'm really looking forward to is pouring over Elisabeth's baby book with her tomorrow, and her "file"--stuff we've saved and thinking about the day she was born and all the years that have followed. All the ups and downs and in betweens. Wow. What a gift she is. What grace is poured out on us.

Pictures to come soon (if not already here by the time you read this).

LS

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