March Madness Recap - Ellie Turns Eight

You may not know this, but Taylor Swift is the coolest thing to many 7-8 year old girls right now.  I knew Ellie liked her, but had no idea the response that we would get for her party.  I created some invitations that I thought looked pretty good and got the response from girls like they were actually going to the concert.  Score one good mom point for me :)

The thing that was tricky about this party was that is was on the same day as prom, so fun but simple was the key.  We started as I always do, with a little activity as kids arrive, because they NEVER all arrive at the same time.  Ellie loves wordsearch puzzles right now, so I thought it would be fun to give one to the girls.  Like at Catie's party, we put some background music on - Taylor Swift of course, and this is what happened.

Ellie wanted to make some Taylor Swift flowers for the girls hair, but needed something a little more complicated than the ones from Catie's party the week before.  After some searching, I found a very easy tutorial here.  

 

Enoch again stepped up and helped - we cut the big circle and spiral and let the girls roll them up.  It was the perfect level of difficulty for them - hard enough to make them feel grown up but easy enough for them to accomplish without taking too long. 

The blonde girl to the right of Ellie is her best friend Melanie - they call each other Mellie and Ellie :)

We had cupcakes, opened presents - several of which were Barbie related - and all the girls agreed that the Barbies must be played with right then, and that is how the party ended.

The next day was Ellie's actual birthday, day after prom, Sunday, and we ate dinner at my mom's house, with me bringing Ellie's cake as dessert.  She really wanted chocolate cheesecake and I really didn't have it in me to make a proper one, so I went to my trusty recipe book and pulled up the chocolate cheesecake dessert, adding additional layers both to make it feed more people and make up for the fact that it wasn't "real" cheesescake. 

I the midst of prom decorating on Friday, I left to take Ellie for her birthday present - she got her ears pierced.  I forgot to get a picture of the momentous occasion, but I promise she was shocked at first ("Mom, that hurt!"  "Ellie, they put holes in your ears."  "I know but it hurt!") but then couldn't stop smiling.  She thought that was her whole birthday present, but we gave her three cards of earrings to open on Sunday.  Last week was the six week mark, and Ellie has switched to a different pair every day.