princess-fairy-ballerina party of the year!

mia's birthday week wrapped up with a party to end all parties. for her fourth birthday, mia requested a ballerina — wait — a fairy — wait — a princess party. that, my friends, is how we ended up with the princess-fairy-ballerina theme, the trifecta of little girl cuteness. we started out with a pink and white princess tea party complete with cream cheese and strawberry finger sandwiches, strawberry yogurt, strawberry milk (they're all pink!), pink fruit dip, pink jelly beans and pink and white circus animal cookies. despite all the estrogen present, milk mustaches popped up everywhere (they were pink too, by the way):

strawberry milk mustaches

after lunch, we moved on to the games. to borrow a phrase, crazy times call for crazy fun, and crazy fun it was! the girls played pop that balloon, musical thrones, dress up relay (they had to pile on as many dress up things as possible) and princess dance party. here are some shots of the dress up relay that just cracked us up:

jack's wishing he was somewhere else...

musical "thrones"

who knew that such simple games would elicit such enthusiasm, expressed frequently and loudly through shrieks of joy and sheer giddiness. let's just say that aidan was hiding out somewhere downstairs, and i needed some advil at the end of 2 hours. here's a little snippet of the insanity.

mia is so blessed to have such a sweet bunch of little friends. in attendance was reese, brynn, julia (a sweet little girl we recently met in dance class), emma-kate, amelia, sarah, and lucy (a brand new friend from church who is just so darling). the party was awesome, and the girls all had a great time (if the screaming and silliness was any indication). aunt annie and honorary aunt ashley were my ladies in waiting, and i couldn't have pulled it off without their help. thanks ladies!

here's a few more pictures i just had to share: