Pink Flamingos everywhere

Maybe you remember this post about Tempe's birthday party back in June. Yes, I have literally been planning her birthday party for over three months.

Well, the day finally arrived, and we had a great party! It was her first "friend party" and she has been excited for weeks. I invited nine kids, thinking that they couldn't possibly all come, but they did--so, with nine guests plus Tempe and Helena, it was a pretty crazy (but fun!) party.

Since I've been planning for so long, I was able to snatch up a lot of flamingo stuff on clearance and at D.I. I checked out a children's story about a flamingo from the library (For Pete's Sake! by Ellen Walsh--and it fit into my Joy School theme yesterday) and had it sitting out, along with crayons and a huge stack of flamingo coloring pages I found online and printed out. I wanted there to be some quiet activities for kids who might be overwhelmed by all the noise and activity. We played Flamingo Ring Toss, Flamingo Freeze (I just turned out some music and let the kids dance wildly until I paused it, and then they had to "freeze"), and had a Stand-Like-A-Flamingo contest (on one foot). The games didn't take very long, so when we were done I sat all the kids down and read the book out loud. After opening presents, we had pink lemonade cupcakes and pink lemonade out on the back deck. For goody bags, I made little drawstring bags out of flamingo print flannel, denim from old jeans, and pink polka dot fabric and filled them with pink and green jelly beans.

It was wild, but fun, and Tempe loved having her friends come and pay attention to her. Here are some pictures!

You can't see, but this banner says "happy birthday". It was fun to make, but time consuming.

Goody bags hanging on a flamingo hook by the front door.

Pink lemonade cupcakes--click here for the recipe.

Standing like a flamingo.

The first present she opened was a Lightning McQueen book. It was hard to get her to focus on the other presents because she was so excited to read her new book!

All the kids on the back deck waiting for their cupcakes!

Blowing out her candles. How did my little girl get to be three years old??

Yum!

I have some really cute pictures of Helena and the other kids, too, but since it was Tempe's party, I only posted the pictures of her.