Happy 9th Birthday, Munchkin!

Her actual birthday's still 19 days away, but thanks to other weekend commitments in the coming month, the party was today. It was a beautiful day for it, and we couldn't have asked for nicer girls. They were all so polite and well-behaved. One of them even said, "Wow, Mrs. Lowe, you did a lot of work for this party!"  I just love her! The pennant banner above was easy to make using scrapbook paper, an alphabet stencil, a marker, and some ribbon. I could have bought one, but this one's more special.

The munchkin opened her present from mama and daddy early after mama and Auntie finished decorating the cake. Since the theme of the party was "An Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Social," we had some fun with the cake.

My poor photography doesn't do the cake justice. It was adorable! Tasted good, too. Again, we could have bought one, but then I we wouldn't have had the satisfaction of seeing (and tasting) something we did ourselves. Besides, sis-in-law and enjoyed making it together. I thought it looked great on my vintage milk glass cake pedestal.

I found some cute ideas on the internet using Starbucks Frappucino bottles, and adapted them for our party. It was really tough to drink all of those Frappucinos. (Ahem.) The round portion of the bottle label was free to print from the website Eat Drink Chic, and you can edit the words yourself.  I attached them to the bottles with clear packing tape. I ordered the straws here:  Pink Polka Dot Drinking Straws.

Our party started with chalk on the front drive. As the girls arrived, I had them draw their dream ice cream sundae. We had some quite interesting and large pictures to enjoy!

Next, we enjoyed an ice cream cone relay. The girls divided into two teams which they named "Ice Cream" and "Sprinkles." They took turns balancing a styrofoam ball on a waffle cone while they ran down around an obstacle and came back. We played for the best two out of three, and the winners got to be first in line for the food.

The girls really enjoyed playing a version of Duck, Duck, Goose that we renamed Banana, Banana, Banana, Split.

The girls created their own ice cream sundaes. I used some of my vintage Lu-ray pastels to hold the toppings.

All of the topping labels were found at Eat Drink Chic.

Since I'm a complete ribbon junkie, it was easy to use ribbon I had to create this ribbon topiary for the table. (Click here for instructions.)

There might have been just a little too much sugar at this party...

Of course, presents were next!

I found a bunch of ice cream cone containers of bubbles, so I let the girls take them outside and go crazy with them after the presents.

I send the girls home with gift cards from a local ice cream shop. I put each one in a glassine envelope and used a little wooden ice cream spoon as a tag. The printable tags that say "Thanks for Coming" are from Eat Drink Chic.