Katie's Birthday Party

As told by Beth: We've been enjoying our visit with Jamma (and all the free babysitting!) The weekend disappeared in a blur of holiday parties for Jamie and me, including the granddaddy of them all-- my work party which is quite the affair, complete with custom martinis and flaming shots-- yes, you guessed correctly that we weren't feeling so well on Saturday morning. The company is generous enough to provide hotel rooms, so we did get to enjoy a little extra snooze.

Meanwhile, Jamma and the girls had fun making pizzas (although Miss Caroline just tried to eat everything while Katie was busy decorating hers); movie night with popcorn; pajama playtime follwed by scrambled eggs for breakfast and and fun in the snow-- including the world's smallest snowman!

When we returned home, Katie and I got to work on her birthday party preparations and she was a great helper putting the favor bags together. She was very involved in the planning of this party. She picked which kids to invite, decided to have it at Chuck E. Cheese in lieu of the original plan to have a princess tea party (which started getting complicated when she wanted everyone to dress as princesses and then decided to invite several boys from her preschool class!). We incorporated the princess theme in her invitations and her huge and fabulous four princess cake (how could you pick just one princess?) She decided that we would hold off on the princess tea party for her fifth birthday, which she is already looking forward to!

She had a ball at Chuck E. Cheese and seemed to play every game there. She especially enjoyed the rides, air hockey and soccer. She was also a big fan of the dance floor with the video camera that projected onto the TV screens. Jamma was a huge help in entertaining Caroline who had a terrific time and as Jamma said, she was a cheap date because she enjoyed all of the games without even inserting any tokens. Jamma also taught her to do the chicken dance!

Katie was very excited about all of her fabulous gifts-- many of which were princessy and she wanted to wear her new cheerleader outfit to school on Monday. She was exhasted by the time the evening was done and once we got her still she went right to sleep after her big day.

In addition to seeing the kids have so much fun, my favorite parts of the party were: not having to clean up afterwards and having someone else wrangle the kids!

We will celebrate Katie's actual birthday (which is on Friday) with a family dinner on Thursday and then we will celebrate with my side of the family with a birthday lunch on Dec. 26 (ahh- the joys of being a Christmas baby!)

As the mother, I feel obligated to make a wardobe note regarding Katie's attire in many of these photos. She often decides she's hot and sneaks off to change into a sun dress or remove her turtlenecks, etc. Just wanted to explain, lest you think we were experiencing a warm front . . .



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