Happy Birthday Julia

Last week, my little Julia turned 6 years old. On Friday night, we let her choose what she wanted for dinner and she wanted to go out for chinese food. So we headed over to our fave Joy Luck Restaurant for a very tasty meal.

The following morning was her birthday party with her friends from the school and neighborhood. She dressed up in her Cinderella dress and welcomed ~10 other little princesses to the party (and one cute little pirate). Shortly after all the guests arrived, Cinderella herself arrived along with her friend Lady Cassidy. Cinderella was greated at the door by a throng of overly excited young girls. Lynette and I had to pull them aside in order to let our royal guest come in.

Cinderella was very sweet and excited to see the young girls. She gathered them all together in the living room and started asking what princesses they each knew about. She sang parts from Disney songs and had them identify which princess had sung that particular song. She then told her own story about how, in spite of her stepsisters and stepmother angrily interfering, her fairy godmother had come to the rescue and helped her go to the ball and how she met and fell in love with the prince and later was rediscovered thanks to the glass slipper and had then married the prince and lived happily ever after.

The party guests were very excited by all the princess fun. It continued by giving each of them a chance to have their picture taken with and their face painted by Cinderella. All but one of the girls had their face turned into a colorful butterfly and our young pirate became a wonderfully frightful tiger.

As the party continued, Cinderella brought out her glass slipper for use in a couple of games. She also brought some fun crown crafts that each of the girls could do while waiting for everyone to get their face painted. After a few more fun games and the chance to have Cinderella sign their pictures, Cinderella and Lady Cassidy had to return to their castle. I can definitely recommend the folks at "Princess Parties" for the wonderful job they do. If you have a princess in need of a party, definitely check them out (they're local to Bountiful, but will travel for a small surcharge).

We brought in the awesome Cinderella cake that Lynette had made. The party guests then sang Happy Birthday to Julia and let her open her presents. She got some fun gifts and was able to play with her friends before their parents came.

The next day, we had our family come over for a birthday dinner. Unfortunately, our kitchen had flooded a few days before thanks to our possessed dishwasher. So our kitchen floor was slightly torn up and we had industrial strength fans and a dehumidifier blowing. This made dinner preparation and serving a bit tricky. Fortunately the weather cleared up a bit and so the young cousins were able to eat and play outside. Everybody had a lot of fun hanging out, eating a lovely pasta dinner and just chatting. Grandma McKean made some fun "happy birthday julia" cupcakes and we all sang Happy Birthday again and let her open a few more cute presents.

By the end of the weekend, Julia had been truly treated like a little princess.

Happy Birthday princess Julia. We love you very much. :)