Birthday Fun- Part II...Lots of Pics!

Sunday brought a party w/the family: Nana & Papa and Aunt Cassie (Alex stopped by after work for cake too). We decided to make it a tea party...short and sweet as we had to leave later that afternoon for our vacation up north.


Here's what I was up to the night before:


That's a cake (well, the skirt anyway)! Got the idea from Craftster awhile back and decided to run with it after some scrounging around online. I had a few layers with strawberry and buttercream frosting between them all. Turned out pretty well- though I inherited Mom's taste in cakes I think: the chocolate-ier the better :)


Here's her discovering it in the a.m. (still waking up):



Had breakfast and prepped for the tea party. Right before everyone came we opened up her remaining presents from us (well actually J's was opened after everyone arrived). A few weeks before I had started working on a Cinderella dress for her...she loves dressing up and I had the perfect dress from Grandma to recon it from:


I had thought I'd be able to take the bodice pieces right from the existing dress...but a size 7 girl's bodice WOULD NOT FIT this teeny tiny little thing!! Lucky for me the skirt was long! I used this pattern for the bodice and sleeves (I altered the sleeves to 'puff' them at the shoulder), and just used the existing skirt for the skirt and made a bit smaller of one for the inner lining...used up leftover tulle from the tutu's I'd made for her and her dance friends from her 4th birthday :) The whole thing is fully lined...so actually 3 layers all the way round. Ack! The only thing I actually purchased for this dress was the zipper. The evening before I finished slipstitching the bodice lining and then made the little necklace. The headband I'd done a few days before and we had found some little jellies for her glass slippers at Target. Here are some pics!




Everyone filtered in and she opened her present from J: a disc swing he made and painted like a ladybug! I still need to get a closeup of it, but here she is opening it and of course-trying it out on Daddy, and here it is a few days later- hung and in action:




The last present was from Nana and Papa, Lyzzy and Cassie:


She named her Samantha at first, but then on vacation decided she was Lyzzy Samantha, lol. I think she rather looks like a Lyzzy :) This will be her special doll that she'll hopefully keep nice throughout her childhood. Can't wait to use up project scraps for her :D

Then the girls all had their tea party (quite a girly day huh?). We all brought our own dolls we'd kept and Lyzzy's big Grandpa Bear guy attended as well in Lyzzy's place:


Here's Papa getting a nap in during the party (don't worry Dad, everyone who reads this has seen you snoozing anyway!):


Cake-time:


A cute pic of her and Nana:



Then it was off to pack for our trip! I'll probably post a snippet of that later as well. I can't believe she's already 5...I like to remind J that she's 1/2way to 10...1/3 to 15 etc etc...he doesn't seem to appreciate my ribbing :)