Life and a My Little Pony Party

Wow, has it really been since early February that I have posted?  Time really does fly when you are having fun. I have been working on this post for over a week now. As I write this, I am sitting in a hotel in St. Louis at a conference during our lunch break.  I am trying to squeeze in blogging time when I can. The life of a working momma! :) 

So what have we been up to?  Well, there is always the usual craziness: work, home biz, kids, family time, school activities, church, choir, committee meetings, board meetings, dance class, etc. Then we threw gas into the fire.

As most of you know, we have sadly put our house on the market in order to change school districts. Once we recovered from our crazy start of 2014, we hoped life would slow down a bit.  Suffice it to say, it really hasn't. Every free moment has been home improvement and keeping the house show ready.  Add to that lots of Shaklee activity with new clients, parties and general work which let to one of my best months! Yea! 

In between all of that, I was also planning our daughter's fifth birthday party.  Let me repeat that.  I was planning her FIFTH BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!  I mean, what?!?!? Five?!?!?  When did she turn five? More on that later. 

Mia wanted a My Little Pony Party this year and Mommy delivered.  However, it didn't go quite as I had planned. 

I had a vision for this party.  I meticulously planned everything from the cake to the decorations, goodie bags and activities. I scoured the web for ideas and inspiration and collected supplies for months and had grand plans to take great pictures and share it all on Pinterest and the blog.  Well, life has a way of getting in the way.  Let's just say it didn't work out that way, but I am going to share it all with you anyway.

I planned to keep things simple.  Since we had the house for sale, I didn't want to have the party at the house so I rented out a meeting room at our local community center.  Since it was late afternoon, I planned to just have light finger foods and cake and ice-cream.  I got everything I could ready to go the night before.  The morning of the party, I made the cake. I had decided to make the cake myself to save money. I am by no means a professional cake decorator, but it was made with love and the best intentions. 

When I was almost finished with the cake, we got a showing request. Actually, two of them back to back. The showings were scheduled to start at 2:15 p.m. I was due at the community center to set-up at 2.  It was 12:30 and I had not showered and the kitchen (and house for that matter) was a complete disaster. Enter crisis mode.  Thank goodness my parents and Gabe's mom were there or we would never have made it.  My mother, bless her soul, got right to work cleaning and vacuuming while I cleaned up the kitchen and rushed through the shower, while Gabe's mom finished up the food prep.  By some miracle we got the house ready to show, but we were late getting to the community center to set up.  This is where things begin to get fuzzy.

We ran in and just started throwing things together. Mom handled food prep and I rushed to decorate what I could. 

I threw the table decorations on as fast as I could. Literally. No time for fluffing!

I had planned to put the balloons into cute clusters on the wall flanking the birthday banner and the wall posters.  There was no time for that, so I poured all 36 of them on the floor and called it good. This turned out to be great because the kids had a blast chasing them around and popping them.

People started coming in before I was ready, but they were all wonderful and immediately pitched in to help. We have great family and friends!

Instead of goodie bags, I bought My Little Pony water bottles, which also served as a spill free drink cup.  Since this was a late afternoon party, I kept the food to a minimum. We served weenies in a blanket, applesauce, fresh fruit, cheese and crackers.  I had this really cute plan to print a sign that said "Applejack's Applesauce" to put on the food table, but again, it never happened.  What also never happened were the Pinterest-worthy pictures of all the cute themed decorations and goodies. So this is the best pic I had. [sigh]

The activities turned out awesome.  I set up two stations, which I had planned to decorate as "Rarity's Beauty Shop" with cute signs and artwork, but that never happened either. 

At one station, they made their own necklaces and bracelets with beads and yarn. The other was a face painting station using face paint crayons. I got all the supplies at Walmart. The decorations never made it to the tables but the kids had a great time which is all that matters, right? [deep sigh]

The face paint crayons were totally the way to go. They are so much cleaner and easier to use than normal face paints. 

I can't forget Maise.  Oh those eyes…be still my heart!

And, of course, opening presents is always chaos, with all the kids dying to help and Mia trying to break a world record on opening presents the fastest. 

Mia was a very happy Birthday Girl…

Despite everything, it was a great party.  The kids had a blast and, as I watched them all play and laugh and squeal, I realized that it doesn't matter how nice the pictures are or how perfect the decorations come out. It is all about celebrating precious life and quality time with loved ones.  I was reminded to slow down and enjoy the moment.  

Speaking of enjoying the moment, I just can't believe how fast time flies. Our babies grow up so very fast.  So I went back through the years to remember past birthdays and cried.  But as I looked, one thing stood out to me: 

All those smiles.