Lily's Fairy Fifth Birthday!

We celebrated Lily's 5th birthday with a little fairy party that was oh so sweet!

Lily waiting for her party to start!

Fairy Food

Everything was ready and Lily was waiting, with much excitement, for her friends to arrive! We planned to have Lily's party at the University's ornamental garden, but it was crazy windy that morning (with a wind chill in the 20's) so we decided not to freeze the little fairies and to move the party inside. These butterflies were meant to be hanging from a beautiful tree in the garden, but they still looked lovely flying about our living room!:)

The girls (and Eli) had a great time making the butterflies fly!:)

And then it was time to turn 8 sweet little girls into beautiful little fairies! The girls searched our house up and down to find secretly hidden fairy wings, homemade fairy hats, and fairy wands!

My beautiful little Lily fairy!

And once the girls were all decked out it was time to decorate their fairy houses. You know, legend says that if you make a lovely home for a fairy and place it in your garden that a fairy might just come to stay!:) We also heard that fairies like things that glitter and sparkle. So these fairy houses were well decorated with sparkly paint, feathers, shells, and lots of little sparkly things! The girls did an AMAZING job at this...each little fairy house was so unique and special...and they worked at it so intently for so long- just enjoying being creative. It was so fun to watch!

And even Eli joined in...here he is painting the inside of his fairy house.

And then it was time for cake... And this year she just loved having her friends sing to her...

And time to enjoy all of that fun fairy food... Eli found a creative way for eating the grape caterpillars!:)

And then there were presents!

I love how gift opening becomes a group event!:) Her party with her friends was just absolutely sweet and lovely from start to finish! And we finished just in time to clean up, enjoy a few presents, set up, and do it all over again with our family! Her big birthday cake...it was her request...two layers of homemade chocolate cake with a layer of chocolate chip cheesecake in the middle, covered in chocolate butter cream and drizzled with chocolate ganache...yummm!

Lily's collection of goodies...fairy wings, hat, wand, and the fairy house she decorated. And when the family arrived we all jumped in and created our own pizzas!

And enjoyed them!

And since it warmed up a bit we were able to go out and create a natural little fairy garden. Lily, Eli, and I collected these pine cones all fall long just waiting for this! They were lining the inside of the fairy house with birch bark to make it nice and cozy!

And time for more cake!

And a few more presents.

It was such a wonderful, beautiful, full day! So full that little Eli skipped his nap...and I found him like this after everybody left: We were ALL tired and happy. But I think that my favorite moment came at the very end of the day. I was tucking Lily in for bed and I said to her, "Lily, do you know why we did all of these special things for you today?" She said, "because it was my birthday." And I said, "yes, because it was your birthday but mostly because we wanted you to feel extra special today, because you are my special girl." She got the sweetest smile on her face, threw her arms around my neck, squeezed hard, and said, "you are MY special mommy." And that made it all worth it. Happy Birthday to our precious little Lily fairy!