golden par-tay!

addie turned 3 on june 3rd so she got to have a golden party! we had her party a week after her birthday. she had so.much.fun! she kept saying (and keeps saying even now!) "my friends are coming over!" she loved every minute of it and it made all the work so worth it!

the party started at 10, so around 10:15 we started with the golden festivities. the first thing i did was to read goldilicous to them. they loved it!

 i made addie a gold tutu and then decided to make frankie (and lexi!) one too. i chose red because, well, who doesn't like red?! daddy got her dressed in her yellow dress for the golden party and i thought that was sweet and cute, so i couldn't tell him to change her so she would match her red tutu. she looked cute anyway. but she didn't sit very still for the story. she had her dog to walk.;)

 the second golden festivity was to go gold panning. i found this idea on her blog and got all excited because it had to do with goooold! (i've been all about anything gold since christmas! which was, incidentally, when i bought a lot of my golden decorations)

anywho, the kids loved the gold panning! i had christian gather me a bucketfull of rocks and we had spray painted (loving the spray paint!) them gold, threw 'em in a baby pool, added water and voila, hours of fun! we gave the kids foil pans and small baggies and let them find as many gold nuggets as their little hearts desired.

 so, you know how sometimes you throw a party for a kid, and then they get all overwhelmed and go off by themselves? yeah, we had some of that going on.

 i tried to talk her into coming back to the party, but she needed some space to clear her head. ;) she warmed back up to the party after the gold panning ended though.

 the next activity was a golden treasure hunt. the clues were like "go to the piano" and "go to the hose" (3-year-olds, you know). i had told alexis to put the basket of golden coins on the table as soon as we left. well, she got to talking and forgot, so when we went back inside they were like "hey, where's the treasure?" i grabbed the basket, tossed it on the table and said, "look at your golden treasure!" and no one cared that it showed up late. :) 3-year-olds, you know.

 golden fare: cupcakes (spray painted with orange ((i did my best to find golden everything!)), pineapple, pretzels, crackers and cheese, banana bread, and popcorn. oh and green grapes. like i said, i did my best to stay golden!

 addie getting more alone time.

 time to sing happy birthday!

 she was so, so, so happy!

 ready to open presents.

 all of her friends were willing to help!

 she got some shoes...

 and had to put them on immediately!

 i had lexi and robin taking pictures while addie opened presents and i found this one in there. such a proud papa. :)

 she got $3 for her birthday and loved it!

 robin added some cute flowers that addie loves! she wants to smell them and plant them and sleep with them.

 cute dress-up present. and cute face.

 lexi found this rapunzel headband at the dollar tree (i seriously love that place!) and had to buy it for addie's present. and she loved it!

 later that day we went over to neighbor renee's for her graduation party. we had to bribe addie so she would leave her toys, so we let her wear her new dress-up stuff. here she was before she put a shirt on. and she was posing for me. making weird faces...

 and trying not to smile...

and more weird faces...

now she's convinced that her friends are coming over every week, her birthday is coming again, and that everyone is bringing her presents. wonder when that's gonna die down?