Fiesta Time!

Okay, now that I've recovered from Carlie's party, I can finally blog about it. The party of choice this year was a Dora Fiesta party. Carlie has always loved Dora, and requested this quite a long time ago. However, since that first decision was made, her theme choice has ranged from Strawberry Shortcake to Princess Aurora, to Mary Poppins. I encouraged her to stick with Dora, since I had already purchased a "fiesta dress" for her to wear.

First, let me just say, that parties is yet another part of life where my children are night and day. Kendyll is constantly in party planning mode. She is always thinking of a new excuse to have as many kids over as possible with a theme, decorations, cute food, and a schedule of entertaining games. Carlie would rather play alone with no attention drawn to her on her birthday or any other time. (In fact, on her actual birthday, we kept randomly telling her happy birthday or singing to her, and it drove her crazy!) She doesn't like big "to-do's" over her accomplishments and had quite a few opinions on this party. Because of her dislike for big crowds and loud noise, I decided to let her make the invitation list. It consisted of one person: Caroline, her good friend from church who is so much like her (see below). Couldn't they be twins?Anyway, I encouraged her to think about a few other kids from church who we are close with.....but no success. She said "No, that's TOO MUCH kids!" The girls knows what she wants. So, then I asked her about inviting Noah, my good friend Sara's little boy, who we've arranged a friendship with whether they like it or not. :) And, she was insistent that "NO BOYS CAN COME TO MY PARTY!". This stuck for weeks and weeks, as I kept trying to sneak a couple of boys on the invitation list. But, no. She would have nothing to do with any boys, except Daddy and her grandfathers. Mark even asked me one day "Why are you asking our three year old who to invite? Why don't you just invite who you want to?" To which I replied "If we invite people who Carlie doesn't want, she's going to YELL at them when they walk in the door!" Needless to say, Noah did end up coming, and she was glad to see him. She seemed happy with the two friends who came, even though five were on the list---it ended up being the perfect amount for little miss Carlie. Here's the gang eating their cake....which is a whole other story.

I took Carlie to three different bakeries looking at Dora cakes for her big day. She liked them all okay, but never was too excited about it. So, do you know what she wanted more than anything else? The nasty, pre-made, spray-painted icing kind of cake from the fridge at the grocery store. She loved the sprinkles and the way the spraypaint icing changed from one color to the next on the side of the cake. She's so funny! So, that's what we got. At least it was cheap!

I think the party was a success in most aspect. The food was a fun fiesta, the decorations were quite "festive" (thanks, sisters, for your help on that!), and the entertainment was like no other (I'll get to that in a minute). And, even though, she's not the best at showing it during the party, Carlie has told me on many occasions SINCE the party that she loved her party, that she is thankful for her party, and that she wishes her friends could come back for a Dora party. So, I'm glad she had a fun time. Even Abby Kate enjoyed the celebration!As for the entertainment, Kendyll planned most of this party completely by herself! We decided to have a Dora Adventure, just like on the real show---where they have 3 stops, a map to guide them, and challenges to overcome. She literally planned each stop, drew a map, wore the Dora costume, and directed the other kids on the adventure. It was absolutely precious to watch. As we were planning it one night, and she had thought of every single detail down to the way we would build each center and what Dora would say at each stop, I just started laughing out of pure amazement! She got a little bit upset and said "Why are you laughing at me?" I told her I was only laughing because I was completely amazed at her talent and was so happy to see how incredibly creative she was! She did a great job and is such my little hostess.

She woke Carlie with a real Dora visit at the front door. Here is Carlie in her bed before the surprise guest arrived. She was in bed with her birthday princess crown on, holding her Dora twin babies (bday presents from Gammy!), sleeping on Dora sheets, in her Dora nightgown, ready for her Dora day!After the door was answered and Dora said happy birthday, they stood outside, waiting for Carlie's friends....until we told them that it was still three hours until party time.

From the moment "Dora" walked in that morning, Kendyll was no longer. I realized this when I heard "Mrs. Jacobs?" I turn around and see Kendyll calling me that. I say "Yes....Dora?" "Ummm, yes, where is your bathroom? I've never been to this house before." From then on, she never broke character once. She referred to Mark and me as "Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs" and continued to use her best manners. I told her Dora could stay around as long as she wanted!

Here is our "Dora" greeting the kids at the door, and talking about what a pinata is. As she was talking, "Swiper" (aka Daddy), came and swiped the pinata right out of her hands. She then asked the kids to help her get the pinata back for Carlie's party by following the map!

Here she is showing everyone the map she made of Duck Pond, Rainbow Bridge, and Balloon Bounce House, the three stops along their adventure:

On their way through the Duck Pond. The only part we couldn't do was the cardboard box boats that Kendyll wanted to build....some of her dreams get too big to pull off.

Across Rainbow Bridge (only after passing the Grumpy Old Troll and solving his riddle!):

And, finally, to Balloon Bounce House, where they got the pinata back from Swiper!

It's a good thing we got the pinata back. What would we have done without all of this candy to eat?

It was a fun day and definitely memorable in many ways. As much as I love party planning for my girls, I'm secretly glad to have a long break in birthday party planning until next February. And don't worry...Kendyll's already got her #6 planned. :)