Rylie's 7th Birthday Party!!

This year for Rylie's birthday she really wanted a party. Last year we were on sabbatical in Australia. We celebrated her birthday in St. Kilda and her actual birthday was on a plane to New Zealand. Pretty cool, if you ask me. I don't know many kids (or adults) who can say the celebrated their birthday in Australia and New Zealand. Never-the-less, this year she really wanted a party with her friends. We decided to have an American Girl Doll birthday party!!! We invited 24 girls (yes, 24) to our house to celebrate Rylie. It was so fun preparing for the party, researching ideas for activities, shopping for supplies, making the cupcakes and finally celebrating. Rylie had a blast!! She kept saying how much fun it was and that it was the best day of her life. She loved sitting and opening all the presents and playing with her friends. I was so happy to be able to throw the party! Here are some highlights from the party!

We had vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting and gold sprinkles. 

I even made the American Girl dolls mini cupcakes and 

they had mini glasses of pink lemonade too!

We borrowed gold vases from Kelli Frisch and bought colorful flowers 

for each vase to decorate the tables. It looked great!

I LOVE this picture with Rylie. This was right before the party! 

She had already made the party hat for her doll!

We had a gold banner in the background that Reka made the letters for.

Rylie loved setting up the tables with the activities. It was so nice to have the party at our house. 

The backyard seemed huge without the pool fence!

 We had 6 stations with different American Girl Doll themed activities. 

The girls rotated through each station. Bella ran the American Girl Doll BINGO station.

 The other stations included making party hats, making matching hair clips for doll and girl, making matching necklaces for doll and girl, painting doll t-shirts and finally making a tutu for the doll. Thankfully I had a lot of help from some good friends to keep the stations running with all 23 girls.

 This might be my favorite picture from the day! I just LOVE LOVE Rylie's face! 

She was glowing!! All her friends sang "happy birthday," 

then they got food and their dolls and headed outside to eat on her new gymnastics mat.

 The final activity was the making of the tulle skirt for the dolls. 

This turned out to be a flop but the girls were still happy and Rylie didn't seem to mind. 

Again, so thankful to the mom's who helped out! They saved the day!

 The girls and their dolls!!!!

(We missed a picture of Rylie with Sahara and Rylie with Kinley.)