Madeline's 5th birthday!

For Madeline's birthday this year, she asked for an Aurora party. (Her friend Emily  S. had mentioned that Aurora is her favorite princess, and Madeline decided to have a Sleeping Beauty party and invite Emily. So sweet!) Caleb and I came up with games that would walk the kids through the story of Sleeping Beauty. Here's what we did:

First, the kids had to search the yard for each of the three fairies. (Remember, they were hiding from Maleficent in the woods!) I used my Cricut to make Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, then Caleb hid them outside.

Next, the fairies were getting ready for "Briar Rose's" birthday, but they couldn't agree what color her dress should be! Make it pink, or make it blue? 

We brought the kids to the deck and they did a science experiment, using the water from boiled cabbage and different bases and acids to turn it colors.

(Yes, we're total nerds here - but Madeline really likes doing science experiments!)

Despite the fairies' best efforts, Aurora still pricks her finger on the spinning wheel, though! For that, we split the kids into two teams and did a relay race with water balloons. The kids had to take their balloon over to a bucket that had a pencil taped inside. The pencil helped them "prick" the balloon - and whichever team filled up the bucket fastest won!

TONS of giggles with this game!

The fairies freed Prince Phillip so he could rescue Aurora, but Maleficent blocked his path with black thorns. Keeping the same teams, the kids used pool noodles to beat black balloons (the thorns) out of their path and under the swingset. The kids said this was their favorite game!

We hadn't thought of how easily the wind would blow the balloons AWAY from the swingset again, but they had a blast anyway!

Singing Happy Birthday!

Caleb made an AWESOME Aurora cake! Two cake mixes, baked in 9x13 pans and stacked on top of each other, then he carved out the shape and carefully put her picture on with icing. We had lots of cake leftover as scraps, but those are my favorite parts anyway! Oh, and Madeline tried the cake itself for the first time! She decided that, by itself, it's actually pretty good. :) 

We have some friends who moved away last year, up to Duluth, but Madeline was still buddies with their daughter Lena so we invited them to stay with us for the weekend so the girls could play. Their trip in and of itself had some great memories! Madeline and Lena had their first sleepover together! We put sleeping bags on the floor for them (with our memory foam underneath, hoping it would be more comfortable), and they loved it. At one point after putting them to bed, Lena came out saying that Madeline was crying for me. I went in there, and Madeline said that Lena had told her something scary. Lena immediately told me, "It's true!" (meaning what she told was true). What sleepover is complete without ghost stories, right?

That night, we had a terrible storm. We had wind gusts as strong as 70 mph, so the storm sirens went off around midnight. Not knowing whether it was a tornado warning or not, Caleb and I woke all three girls and brought them into the basement. We brought Lena and Madeline's sleeping bags and pillows down, too, hoping they would just try to go back to sleep. Madeline was all for it, but Lena wanted to talk! Unfortunately, the storm TERRIFIED Olivia. With every crash of thunder, her crying would become shrieks, and she was clutching me for dear life. At one point, she even started crying out, "Mommy, I scared! Please pause it! Please pause the storm!!" This has led to an intense fear of thunderstorms that persists even now (3 months later). Meanwhile, Liz, Frank, and their son Charlie slept through it all! ;) We were very fortunate that we didn't lose power in the storm (many people did), and it didn't adversely affect the birthday party the next day.

 Happy Birthday, Madeline!!