Macie's Wonderland

{September 25, 2010}

(The long awaited post. Probably more on my end than anything else. I'm pretty proud of Macie's party, and so I have to brag about it...just a little! ;-) WARNING: There are lots and lots of pictures. You will almost feel like you were there! Oh, and before I forget, thank you, Kristyn for playing photographer for me! You're great!)

When Macie was turning two, I thought it would be perfect to have an Alice in Wonderland birthday party. But, since she was only two, I thought she was a little too young to have a tea party with friends. And so we postponed it a year, but she didn't want to have an Alice party, she wanted Minnie Mouse, and Minnie won last year. But this year, she was very excited to have her Alice party. I had so many ideas running through my head. I seriously could have spent thousands of dollars just on a 4 year olds birthday party. It was pretty intense. But, I didn't. Don't worry, I wouldn't think about even spending a ten of that! Close, though. Very close!

My mom made Macie an adorable Alice dress. I have been purposely letting her hair grow a little just for this, and she was a perfect Alice. And, after about a year of collecting decor, it was party time!

First, was the invitation. Sadly, I don't have a picture of the outside of the invite. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture. So, let me describe it. It was light blue, the color of Alice's dress, and regular card shaped. On the front was the white apron that Alice wears, and wrapped around the whole card was a headband with a black Alice bow. We opted for "Alice bows" instead of party hats. And then the inside of the card:

And then the decor.

{Adam drew and cut out those card people...impresseive, eh?}

Yes, the party guests were to go through the "rabbit hole" into Wonderland. We had high hopes for the rabbit hole, and lots of ideas, but ideas that probably would have been much too elaborate for a 4 year old birthday party.

Did I mention that the day of the party was THE hottest day? Oh my goodness. We had all of the decorations ready outside and it was about 10 AM. The party wasn't until 2. But, I ran inside to check the temperature, and it was already 95! IN SANTA MARIA! Hot, hot, hot. It was too late to move everything in, so it stayed outside in the fricken heat! But, if it got too unbearable, I decided we could just watch Alice in Wonderland {the cartoon version} inside.


After crawling through the rabbit hole, we colored pictures until the rest arrived.



After everyone arrived, a special guest arrived! ALICE, HERSELF! {sadly, I don't have pictures of her grand entrance. She came with balloons and a gift just for Macie, and in complete character! It was DARLING! She NEVER lost the character, the whole time she was there she was Alice...another post, I think! ;-)}

We played a game of musical chairs, but didn't play the right way, we just ran around the table, it was fun! But, oh so hot!

And then Alice drew a flower on each girls hand with their favorite color! They loved that part.

There was a bit of playing in the pink sand. It may sound cute and fun to have pink sand, right? I mean it's PINK SAND! But, that pink sand has been cursed around our house ever since that party. That stuff isn't like regular sand, it gets everywhere! Maybe it just gets everywhere because it's a more noticeable color, but it really is everywhere! It was fun, though. They got to play with tea cups and tea pots in the sand, they loved it.

And then it was tea party time. "Alice" was the greatest ever, she told the girls how much she loved tea parties and told them about when she has tea parties with the Mad Hatter and her best friends the White Rabbit. And then she told them to remember to put their pinky up when they drank tea, it was adorable. However, it was still hot. The sandwiches I made just a little bit before were pretty much toasted by the time they ate them! Macie picked the spread of food: pb&j, cheese puffs, marshmallows, licorice, skittles, tootsie rolls, raspberry lemonade and grapes. Quite the combination, and quite unhealthy, really. But, hey, it's a birthday party for heaven's sake! ;-)Poor little girls, though. They were all pretty rosy cheeked and sweaty by this point! And then we moved inside.

We played pin the tail on the white rabbit, and then hit the pinata with a croquet club. {that was a bit dangerous, though!} The pinata was built by our friend, Paul. He made it to look like Mrs. Potts, and it was perfect! I wished I had the time to actually put the crepe paper on it, but spray paint worked just as well...they just broke it anyway! I did put pretzels inside the pinata to kind of offset the amount of candy and sugar that was distributed!

After a little cool down inside and after the "eat me" cupcakes and presents were opened we headed back in the heat for a little croquet. You can't have an Alice party without croquet! It's the favorite game in Wonderland. However, our mallets were not flamingoes. But I don't think they seemed to care!

After all of Macie's friends had left, it was time for Alice leave Wonderland, too. She gave Macie a big hug and left the same way she came. The magic was never lost! When she left Noah said, "She looks a lot like Zoe who taught us swimming lessons." {Which it was...} But Macie said, very convinced, "No, Noah, that was Alice."

For a four year old, it was pretty magical.

It was quite the party. I have many more pictures...it just takes so long to post them! I don't know if I'll ever do another party again after that one! Holy cow. It's almost been 2 weeks, and I'm still recovering, well...my house is still recovering! But, we do have clean and folded clothes now, I guess that's a plus! She's already started planning her next party...at the skating rink! That one might be a little bit easier!

And now to plan for a certain going to be six year old's Star Wars party...