Daniel & Annabel's Adventures: Annabel's 3rd Birthday Party!

We had a great time celebrating Annabel's 3rd birthday with a family party! Annabel requested a Minnie Mouse theme for her party and I had a lot of fun finding a few treasures to decorate our house for the party with! We had a pin-the-bow in Minnie's hand game, a cute Happy Birthday banner to coordinate, and of course matching plates and napkins all with this red-pink-white-yellow color scheme which I liked best and ran with. Annabel got to pick out a balloon at the party store (Minnie of course!), plus we had polka dot balloons and another Minnie Mouse balloon that matched all the decor I bought. I made my annual photo banner, using my color scheme and that turned out cute. Put up a few little Minnie pictures, some streamers, and called it a party!

Annabel's food requests were chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chips in it and pink frosting on top, pink fruit dip (a recipe from one of the picture cookbooks that she likes so much), chips with salsa, and then she helped me pick out lemon-sugar cookies on my latest Tastefully Simple order so we made those for the party, too. It was a simple afternoon snack & treat party- perfect when you turn three! Except that waiting until 2:00 for the party guests to arrive was excruciating! Of course Annabel and Daniel helped with the decorations and Annabel helped with the baking and that helped take up a little bit of the time, but mostly the kids were bouncing with excitement and couldn't wait for the party to start.

Anyway, we had a great time at our party! Annabel loved playing with the balloons with everybody, she and Bella colored some fun coloring pages I found (Daniel and Kaleb gave this quick shot, but then moved on), all the kids had fun with the little Minnie-bow game, then we did presents- Annabel was very excited about this part of course! (I don't have pictures of this part, Jason took a bunch and I'll try to share when I get them one of these days.) And then we pretty much wasted not another minute to dive into cupcakes! She looked so cute sitting there, being sung to, and then blowing each candle out one by one! And then she ate all the pink frosting on her cupcake and asked for another cupcake to eat more frosting off of!

Funniest moment of the party-
Annabel received a Dora present (cute little mini treehouse playset), BUT was quick to pout that it was "NOT Sleeping Dora!" which made everybody just laugh. (She got "Sleeping Dora" the next day from us, everybody pretty much knew she would- still it was funny!)

Sweetest moments of the party- Annabel's adorable reaction, that sweet super-satisfied grin she does, when she opened the jewelry box from Grandma Mary Kay. And her pure delight, her sparkly blue eyes, her sweet little flop down onto her knees with arms excitedly open, when she saw the big dollhouse box- "A PLAYhouse!!" Watching her reaction is maybe the best thing about giving her presents, I think- I always watch my kids' faces for the precious reactions!

Here are some pictures from our party prepping and our party-time fun!

Annabel's party invitation!

Photo Banner all together...

A closer look:

Getting ready for the party!

Annabel made this picture for me to put up as a decoration; she told me it says "Happy Birthday!" (in the zigzag writing).

Helping me make chocolate-chocolate chip cupcakes!

Annabel got to lick the whisk after we made the pink fruit dip!

My birthday girl standing next to her Minnie game poster in her self-proclaimed Minnie dress!

(From the minute Annabel saw this dress, which I bought from Zulily waaaay back last Fall, she said it was her Minnie dress! Which is what I thought, too- and why I bought it- planning ahead for her third birthday! And actually, she really wanted to wear this in Uncle Brian and Amelia's wedding...thankfully we found a much cuter and even pinker flower girl dress for her to wear instead!)

I did NOT buy this crown- my mom gave it to me at a dinner I think when I turned 25 or 30 or something big like that, and I kept it, thinking my little girl would someday have fun with this- and she did, for about ten minutes!

Balloon bopping fun!

Time to color! And yes, she's usually a lefty, but sometimes she switches it up.

Cupcake time! (No pics of present opening, yet...hopefully soon!)

Annabel was very eager to help Daddy and Grandpa Gary build her new dollhouse, which we did when most of the guests had left. It sure went up very easily and she LOVES it! She plays with it every day- her favorite character: the baby! Thanks to Grandma Cheryl and Grandpa Gary for the wonderful dollhouse, which my mom staked pretty much the minute we found out we were having a girl!

Annabel also LOVES having her own pink bucket of pink and purple Legos. Daniel has fun with these, too.

Still helping...even Daniel got in on the action!

And now she can play!

I love watching and listening to Annabel play with her dollhouse! So cute!

We were very excited to get the movie, Frozen! It was after all, Annabel's first movie theater experience- so of course we had to have the movie for that reason alone! Thank you, Grandma Cheryl!

Still playing!

Annabel and me!

Annabel is also in love with her new jewelry box from Grandma Mary Kay- it plays music and a ballerina twirls...it's a box every little girl should have! Her expression every time she opens this box is just the sweetest.