Sophie has been planning her birthday party for this year, pretty much since about a week after her last party. Her birthday fell, conveniently, on a Saturday this year, so it was easy to pick which day to have her party! I had planned to go completely overboard, as usual, with a unicorn pinata and having the kids make and decorate this elaborate unicorn horns. But, fortunately, sanity won in the end, and we made do with a treasure hunt for the treat bags instead. There is this really awesome website called www.birthdaypartyideas.com, where I go for all my ideas. I love borrowing other people's creativity. From this site, we got the idea to have the evil witch steal the unicorn's magic. Only with the help of the brave elves (the girls) could we break the spell and return the magical items , along with the treat bags, to the unicorn.
It was a lot of fun, and Noah and Chris were really good, and very scary evil witches. They didn't do anything but cackle once in a while, and walk around in their costumes, but it totally freaked out the little girls. They were screaming, running away, and too scared to go get the treat bags from their hiding spots, since that is where the witches were walking. I gave them silver dragees to turn them invisible, so as long as they were quiet, the witches wouldn't be able to see them. So simple, but very effective!
Of course, we also played "pin the horn on the unicorn" and then unicorn bingo. Chris had printed out a bunch of unicorn images in varying positions on some paper, and then I pulled corresponding images out of a hat. First girl to have bingo got a prize. We also made unicorn horns from white contact paper wrapped around empty toilet paper rolls, and then tied them to the girls' foreheads with string. Sophie wisely removed hers before leaning over to blow out her candles. 🙂
The cake was a bit of a challenge, but it turned out alright in the end. I was very glad to find waffle cones for sale, I had never seen them before and was prepared to simply buy a ready made ice cream cone and ditch the ice cream! Chris thought the cake looked more like a pig than a horse, so at the last minute I cut off the sides of the round cake, thus making a longer, thinner nose for the unicorn. Sophie loved it and all the girls were asking if they could have the horn.
After all the guests had gone home, we hurried and ate lunch, (tuna pasta salad as requested by the birthday girl) then hopped in the car to drive to Winterthur for a Stake Primary activity. Sophie got to come with me, even though she wasn't technically old enough to attend. But I had been asked to help out at the quilt making station, and couldn't abandon the birthday girl on her special day. She stayed and quilted with me the whole time, and did a very good job! She was even showing the older kids how it was supposed to be done. Nicholas and Amelia also attended, but Sarah decided to stay home instead. They also got to carve walking sticks and make a card for President Monson. They all had a good time, and then we came back to open family presents for Sophie.
She was very excited to get a watch, since she had learned to tell time with Sarah when she got her birthday watch last month. Amelia taught them in about a day. I was just glad that we had so much help eating the birthday cake, because I had to bake another one the next day for Alexandra! It was a very full, busy, exhausting but fun day. I love it when Sophie gets to be the center of attention. As the middle child, it doesn't happen very often.