Princes & Princesses Birthday Party

My boy had his 5th birthday. Well, actually not yet, but the celebrations have already started a month and a half before the official date, I guess that's what happens when you're born on summer vacation... Here's the cake I made for the party at his preschool

So he wanted to invite his friends to a party at our house and then added: but mommy, if we want the boys and the girls to have fun, why don't we make the boys princes and the girls princesses?

Short pause. Mom tries to quickly find an excuse to get away with it, then understands it impossible. Mom agrees and even says: "What a great idea!"

And that's how it all started. Before we begin, I'd like to apologize for the quality of the pictures - most of them were taken during the party, which was crazy, so they're either blurred or out of focus. Sorry about that (even the only picture I took of the cake came out blurred...)

So let's begin with the invitations. They were designed together with the birthday boy as a scroll with burned edges, tied with a red ribbon. But for some reason I don't have a picture of them...

We decorated our backyard with balloons, ribbons, tissue paper pom poms and 'royal' banners.

When they arrived, each child got a red cape (although most of them didn't want to put them on...).

The main attraction was a castle I made from 3 cardboard boxes. The kids just loved it! Every single free second they had, they ran to play there.

While we waited for all the kids to arrive, we prepared a table with crayons and coloring pages. The table was actually empty most of the time, because the kids prefered the castle, but some did sit and color. Btw, the faces of some of the kids are hidden in order to protect their privacy.

Then we divided the kids into 5 groups. Each participated in a different activity, and we switched between the groups every 10 minutes or so. One activity was making a dragon out of an empty toilet paper roll. Here's the birthday boy working on his:

And the dragons

In another activity they decorated cookies in different shapes like crowns and dresses, that I made beforehand. We put icing, ganache and lots of colorful candies on the table.

Then we had a Kiss the Frog game.

Another activity was to decortate crowns. They were supposed to make wands as well, but the crowns took a while to make, so the wands will wait for next year.

But the most popular activity by far was a game that the swedish cousins had tought us - the kids got a fishing rod and tried to fish. They throw the rod over a wall, where my husband hid and connected different objects, like a shoe or a sock, to the rod. They kept on trying until they fished their prize. It was so hard to make them leave this activity - long live Sweden!

After that we all played together Pass the Package. The prize was a treasure chest full with chocolate coins.

And of course we had a snacks table, with the traditional snacks, vegetables with Hummus, Tahini and cheese dip and flower shaped melon and watermelon (again no picture, but the I got the idea at Edible Crafts, a great website, btw!)

The birthday boy asked for a castle cake.

I also made cake pops, but it was a disaster - it was very hard to keep them on the stick... I made some cupcakes as well. Btw, the cupcake stand is a DIY one, I'll post about it later.

Oh, and Marshmallow dipped in chocolate and covered with candies

Dinner included pizza and corn. At the end we also gave them little home-made mini popsicles, that I made in ice trays.

Each child got a favor bag with all the things they made plus a few small prizes.

That's it! The birthday boy was excited and happy, which is obviously the most important thing, and we can rest at least till the litlle one's birthday.

We woudn't be able to arrange this party without the great help that we got from family and friends - so thank you all!