When the Captain turned five, I wanted him to have a Big! Day! Of! Fun!, and I think we did a good job. He still talks about all the fun stuff we did that day, and plans to basically relive the entire process every year until he’s 70, or when he breaks a hip, whichever comes first. In any case, it was a great day and a fun time.

This year, Gal Smiley is turning five, so we have big big plans. We started by giving her all kinds of ideas for birthday activities. Since she’s a very visual person (and has a memory like a sieve), I drew pictures of all the potential fun stuff — bowling, mini golf, painting craft at a pottery store, and so on — and she added some ideas of her own. Then we looked at the big sheet of drawings and she picked out her favourite package.

In the end, all she really cared about was a) wearing pyjamas and b) eating popsicles. So you know, not exactly a tough order.

Although her birthday isn’t for a couple of weeks, we are having her party this coming Saturday, due to scheduling issues on the upcoming two weekends. She’s SUPER excited.

The really crazy thing, though, is that one of the girls we invited to the party is having her birthday party the same day, but at a different time. Her party is at a place that required a booking, so they couldn’t change the date. We didn’t find out about her party until after we’d already sent around Gal Smiley’s invitations. We talked about changing Gal Smiley’s party, but she was so excited and due to the issues with our family schedule, we would have had to push it off for three more weeks.

So in the end, the other girl’s mother and I decided what the hell, we’ll let them go to both parties and TOTALLY FREAK OUT. Talk about your big day of fun! Gal Smiley and her friend will now be going to her party from 1pm to 4pm, then Gal’s party from 4pm to 7pm.

Good times, good times. Did I mention we have our first gymnastics class at 8:30am the next morning? Whee!

Anyway, on to birthday party craftiness. I am not really that crafty, but I try. Here’s the invitation I made up:

I printed this out as a photo (17 cents each at the Superstore) and then glued them onto a plain white piece of bristol board to make a little postcard. Then Gal Smiley scrawled each guest’s name on the back for delivery.

On Saturday, we’ll start by greeting the guests and having rocket popsicles:

Then, we’ll be doing this craft — gluing various sparkly things and ribbons on to mirrors.

I bought the mirrors at IKEA and pre-painted them white. The mirrors were $4 a piece — a little pricey, maybe, but I liked the fact that the frames were so big, so there was so much space for the kids to decorate. This one is my test run/sampler — it’ll be going to one little girl who couldn’t make the party. The sparkly bits and ribbons all came from Michaels.

Next, we’ll be having dinner of hot dogs and fruit, and dessert of sheepy cupcakes (these are a batch I made for Little Miss Sunshine’s birthday last month):

Then we’ll open presents and put on some temporary tattoos. If there’s time, we’ll have a bit of a dance party.

By 5:30pm or so, we’ll crash on the couch in front of a movie — Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus.

I LOVE this movie, because it is so wonderfully hilarious. Barbie is a princess (of course) and a champion figure skater (of…course?) and has a fluffy baby polar bear friend (naturally) and her own pink pegasus to fly around on (don’t we all). It’s every girl’s dream life! We chose it because we have seen it before, so we know it’s safe (i.e. nothing scary) and also, we figure most of the other girls haven’t seen it.

Anyway, there will be popcorn, chips, and some candy during the movie, and if anyone falls asleep — hey, they’re already in their jammies! When pick-up time rolls around, all the girls can just be carried home (they all live on our street) and popped right into bed.

On their way out the door, the girls will each receive one of these loot bags:

These are from the Etsy shop The Ole Bag Lady, who I love love love love love. She makes cloth bags for gift giving and they are lovely and inexpensive. The bags I ordered for the party are her “Going to Grandma’s” bags, which are quite large (about 12 by 14 inches), are fully lined, and have cloth handles. I figured I’d be spending a few dollars each on gift bags, so why not get something environmentally friendly and reuseable? I think these would make great bags for dance shoes, lunches, art totes for the car, or even for a change of clothes for going to Grandma’s for a night. I bought a variety of patterns — Gal Smiley is not much of a girly-girl so she picked out a monkey one for herself, and I bought a boyish one for the Captain. She gave me a discount on my bulk order, and added a couple of freebie gift bags, too. AWESOME. I will definitely shop there again.

Each bag is labelled with a tag with the girl’s name on it,, and decorated with sparkles in various shapes. Gal Smiley and I made these one afternoon — it was a fun activity and a good way to help her feel involved in the party preparation. Plus, she LOVES to use sparkles.

Lastly, inside each bag is a Webkinz. They were on sale 2-for-1 at the Boomerang, which is great, and also we had enough cash in our Boomerang account from selling some baby toys that it covered the half-price cost. Win-win!

Whew! I wore myself out just typing up this post! I don’t know how we’re going to find the energy to do it all in real life…and another party too.

I know. It’s crazy.

But I think it’ll definitely be a Big! Day! Of! Fun!…assuming we can handle all that fun. Whoo hoo!