Birthday parties

My daughter's birthday party is a week from today. We have invited her pre-school class as well as the pre-school/pre-K class for the 4 year-olds. We invited both classes because so many of her friends have already moved into the 4 year-old class that she started rattling this long list of "friends I want to invite to my birthday party" that is was not fair to only invite 75% of the class. (!)

Of course, the "theme" for the birthday party are the Disney princesses. Yes, we are in the princess stage -- all pink and purple, all the time. We are having the party at our local county recreation center, and we are having Power Tots come so the children can do gymnastics.

And exactly how does one weave together a princess-themed birthday party with gymnastics? Well, Prince and Princess Training, of course! It's not like you can find store-bought invitations for THAT, so we made our own.

Then I made the mistake of Googling to find what others have done for their princess-themed birthday parties. Man, do people go over the top or what?!? Here's one that I found particularly illuminating.

I asked DH about all this because this birthday party stuff is just a wee bit manic if you ask me -- and even HE said, "Weren't we lucky to even get birthday cake with our parents when we were kids?" I just don't get all this stuff. And the "debates" by moms on the parenting boards seemed to be centered around whether children should open birthday presents in front of their friends or not. I'm hardly an expert in this area (thus my Google searches for birthday party ideas), but of all the parties I have been to with my daughter, none of them involved the birthday boy/girl opening presents at the party. Maybe if we had fewer children attending it would make sense, but with 20-odd children there, it just seems headed for disaster.

So, we're going to dance class today and then heading out to finalize the birthday cake, and then going out to get the soon-to-be birthday girl's hair cut. And I have at least a dozen errands to run this weekend, too.