Because I'm Happy...

The day was finally here.  And she could hardly contain her excitement.  She kept asking if it was time to go yet.  Shouldn't we get our things and head out to the car?  Did we have everything ready for her big party?  I have never seen her get dressed so quickly and, without a complaint, brush her teeth and stand still to have her hair brushed.  I couldn't blame her, this was her first big girl birthday party.

Yes, she has had parties before.  But because her birthday falls during school break (summer or winter, school is still not in session in late June), she has never gotten to have a party with all of the kids from her class.  And for the first time, she got to choose the theme and location of the party.  Add all together and the excitement factor hits a level where you could almost see her vibrating with it.

She had chosen Zirafa for the location.  It is an indoor play space that contains bouncy slides, twirling and swirling rides, huge ball pits and miles and miles (I exaggerate) of tunnels and mazes, each ending in different slides.  In other words, heaven on earth for a bunch of 5 year olds.

And she had chosen to have a Minion party.  NOT a Despicable Me party, mind you, "just the minions, please".  And that is what she got.  Thank goodness for Pinterest and Google. Throwing a themed party here is a bit LOT harder than it is in the U.S.  There is no Michaels, no Party City, no Birthdaysexpress.com.  There are two or three stores where you can get imported supplies, but the pickings are slim and limited to generic themes (fireman, dinosaurs, princesses etc) and the cost is out of this world.  So, it's downloading off of the internet and making do.  Which in this case, was fairly easy.  I printed off some minion faces and turned them into stickers (yep, we have a sticker maker).  I cut each face out and Stinkerbell and I turned ordinary yellow plates, cups and buckets into mini-minions.  Cute, huh?

Those are Stinkerbell's goggles - which are too cute on her (thanks Nana and Grampa!)

And that is her singing, talking, dancing Dave in the center.  I told you, she loves Minions!

Told you she was cute!

We didn't see much of the kids from the moment they arrived until the food came.  They walked in, handed off their shoes to a parent, and disappeared into the play space.  Every once in awhile one of them would come out looking for a drink of water, but they stayed only long enough to guzzle it down and were once again swallowed by the tunnels.

I couldn't get into the tunnels to get pictures of them, so the photos are all from the front play area.  It is the only place I could get to as an adult.  But even from the few I took, I think they had fun...

I kept finding the oldest kid in the littlest kids playspace.  I think she liked trying to stay in this tube as it rotated her upside down, and she inevitably fell.

Finally, we dragged them all out for pizza (and then again for cake).  Quite a feat rounding up 10 little monkeys and getting them out of their cages (literally).  But we succeeded in getting them to sit still for 10 minutes...well, maybe 8, before they ran off again.

For the final part of the party, and probably my favorite moment of the entire day, was the unveiling of the cake.  Again, American style birthday cakes are hard to come by outside of the U.S.  That just makes sense.  And shaped character cakes are even harder. But I really wanted her to have a minion cake and was prepared to do it myself if I had to.  Thankfully, I didn't have to, because this was so much better.  I stumbled upon a bakery that had a picture of a minion cake on their website.  I had to have that cake!  And my luck held out because they were able to make it on such short notice.  I picked it up on Friday afternoon and hid it in the fridge.  I didn't want her to see it until the big moment.  And what a moment it was...

That is the Best. Face. Ever.

We sent home some very exhausted 5 year olds.  And we took home one very happy little girl who celebrated her birthday exactly how she dreamed it would be.  Nothing makes me happier.

And as a bonus, the song Happy came on the radio as we were pulling out of the parking lot (the theme from Despicable Me 2) and the girls bopped their heads, waved their arms in the air and sang at the top of their voices.  And giggled all the way home.