Alexa's Family Birthday Party

I still haven't figured out how to manage a party that Alexa will enjoy with her friends but still be fun for family/adults. This year we did two separate parties a week apart. I have a feeling that will be my solution most years, since watching kids making cookies probably not much fun for long, but that will definitely add to the business of the holiday/birthday season.

The weekend before Alexa's actual birthday we had a family birthday party for her at my cousins' home. Again, I was not feeling up to tackling a cake so Safeway came through with a wonderful Tinkerbell cake. It looked great and tasted great too. For Kaya's birthday we got a cake from Costco that was actually twice the size and a few dollars cheaper, but Alexa really wanted a chocolate cake and Costco now only sells chocolate cakes with chocolate frosting (and white cake with white frosting) and I just don't care for the look of the chocolate frosting - not to mention that is a lot of chocolate -- and a lot of cake for only a dozen or so people. I liked the taste of the Costco cake too, but just not many decorating choices there.









Again with the hamming it up for the camera....






And the presents, princess shoes from Grandma were a big hit,






and a big hit with Kaya too, but she is a bit young for high heels...






The big present of the day was a dress up trunk, including vintage trunk. This idea was really my Aunt Mary's two years ago, but we finally got it all put together. The princess shoes and many of Alexa's other family presents were dress up clothes. I even hit the after-Halloween sale at Target for kids costumes. My Aunt really outdid herself by putting together a wonderful assortment of new and vintage items, including for storage my Uncle's trunk from when he emigrated from Germany in 1961 - it even still has the luggage room tags from that voyage!