A Party Fit for a Princess

Princess Rose

Once your kid starts preschool, much of your weekend social life revolves around attending children's birthday parties.  While this may initially sound fun, I can tell you from experience that all of the parties are pretty much the same, and mostly involve sugared-up children running around and screaming at the top of their lungs.  This is bad enough under the best of circumstances, but add to that a 9:30am start time and the requisite hangover, and you've got the recipe for every parent's worst nightmare.  I'm beginning to wish that parents would offer ibuprofen as party favors.

In an effort to spare my friends from having to give up yet another Saturday morning, I had planned to forgo throwing the Little Lady a birthday party.  I'm still recovering from that bubble shindig I threw for Noah back in January and I figured that Rose wouldn't really care if we hosted a party. Then I got an email from Princess and Me Parties offering to give me a free party.  I'm sold on anything with the word "free" in the title, but it also happened that the timing was perfect, so I decided to throw caution (and my friends' social calendars) to the wind, and throw a Princess Sofia themed bash.

Rose is obsessed with Sofia the First.  Go ahead and judge me on the whole "no screen time before age two" issue, because plucky Sofia the First is the best thing that's happened to my life since Rose started waking up before 6am.  Anything that occupies my child so that I can doze on the couch has my vote.  When I found out that Sofia was one of the many princess choices offered by Princess and Me Parties, I was thrilled.  I booked the date, whipped up an evite, and set about madly pinning party ideas to my Princess Party Pinterest Board.

I'm not one of those crafty moms, and I like to stick with a formula that works, so we did the usual bagels, lox and mimosas menu again.  Hey, if it's not broke (and it tastes good), don't fix it.

Of course, we had to have lilac colored tableware because, Sofia.

I found a great batch of free Sofia the First printables on Pinterest, and used the cupcake toppers in my flower arrangements.  

I hate party favors, so instead of wasting money on more crap that's just going to end up in a landfill, I put together a Decorate Your Own Crown table.  I bought packages of cardboard crowns at the craft store and put out buckets full of crayons, paints, stickers and pompoms.  It was inexpensive, fun, and made for a great thing for the kids to take home.

Bonus points for the fact that our friends have been cruising around the neighborhood for the past week wearing their crowns!

I scheduled Princess Sofia's arrival for half an hour after the party started.  I figured that would give people a chance to settle in and grab a nosh, and would allow for any latecomers who might otherwise miss the entertainment.

Princess Sofia was incredible.  Not only did she look and sound exactly like the cartoon, she stayed in character the whole time.  She was so sweet and beautiful and really gentle with the little kids.  Rose was a little bit scared at first, but she quickly warmed up and by the end of the party they were walking around holding hands.  It was the cutest thing ever.

We got the princess party package, which was a full hour of Princess Sofia.

 She read a story with the kids,

led a Princess dance party, 

did some awesome face (or arm) painting

and helped Rose blow out her birthday candles. 

It kept all the kids occupied (yes, even the boys who like Batman and tools) and involved minimal parental involvement, thereby freeing up parents to drink mimosas or mainline coffee.  Overall, having Princess Sofia made for a really easy party, and I think that even the adults had fun.

 Rose had such a good time that she didn't want Princess Sofia to leave!

We even got a decent family photo, so I would say it was a VERY successful party. 

The only problem I can foresee is that I've now set the bar way too high for future parties; Noah is already requesting Batman, Super Man and Spider Man for his fourth birthday.  I better start planning (and saving up) for January now.

This post was sponsored by Princess and Me Parties but all opinions about how amazing Princess Sofia was are completely my own.  Thank you, also, to Amelia Borella for photographing all of the fun!