The Miller Family Blog: A Purple Ballerina Birthday!

Birthday Party planning is one of my favorite things to do! It gets a little hectic sometimes because I like to do everything in theme, but I love it all the same. This year Katelynn really struggled with where she wanted to have her party. She really wanted another pirate and princess party at home, but when we were deciding what to do, we had a potential offer on our house that would have landed us in moving mode during the party so I had to push her to pick a public location. Her first choice was actually Everest (where the kids attend/ed preschool and is a full gymnastics center), but they were already booked. Second choice was to have a birthday party at her dance studio where she currently takes classes.

If I haven't mentioned it already, my daughter has a mind of her own. She knows what she wants. There's no more me getting to pick and chose anything so of course the exact theme choice was hers. I thought doing an Angelina Ballerina Book Theme party or a traditional pink ballet theme would be super cute, but Katelynn insisted on having a black and purple ballerina birthday. We mainly did purple, but we encorporated some black into her outfit. Purple ballet stuff is HARD to find! I did land some plates that had purple on them, but the rest of the stuff I defintely had to do on my own!

I made a stab at making cookies for the first time ever! They weren't perfect but for my first time, they weren't too bad either! Katelynn did not want to blow out candles for her birthday cake this year, which was killing me so my clever husband came up with a great compromise. He asked Katelynn if she would blow out a candle if all her friends blew one out too. This worked perfectly for her because her issue was actually having everyone "staring" at her while she blew out her candle. So, instead of an elaborate cake, we went with cupcakes so everyone had their own with a candle.

Favor Bags included two cookies and a mixed CD tape of music they danced to at the party (along with other songs too that Katelynn picked that she liked... all from Kid Bop CDs so they were kid friendly :) )

I did make a cake last minute.. it's one of my 15-minute decorating job cakes so nothing too fancy but it had a "tutu" effect with ballet fondant slippers on the top.

Katelynn has always had HUGE birthday parties, but this year was totally different. We still invited a bunch, but she had picked a large amount of kids from school and I think since this is the beginning of the year and parents didn't really know us, they weren't as ambitious about coming. That coupled with some sick friends last minute, made for a small group of kids. I was nervous at first that Katelynn would be upset, but it ended up being a perfect party for the dance setting!

Ryan was quite the funny little dude at the start of the party. He lost interest near the end, but at the beginning, he was trying out all kinds of moves!

The kids did a 50-minute dance class and learned a small ballet and hip hop routine, which they performed for us after cake! Justin and Ryan even participated a little bit in dancing! Katelynn's dance teacher was very impressed with the rhythm Justin exhibited during the party and kept trying to pursuade us into putting him in dance class. :)