Princess Party!

When I asked Madelyn what kind of party she wanted for her third birthday she did not hesitate at all - she wanted a princess party.  The upside - it is a very popular birthday party theme.  The downside - she wanted to have both girls and boys and a princess party isn't completely gender neutral...what are you going to do :)

We had 5 of Madelyn's friends (and their escorts!) for the party, along with both sets of Madelyn's grandparents.  It was so special for her to have Grandpa, Grandma, Mommom, and Poppop all here to celebrate with her.

For the decor I got a few ideas on pinterest, and here is what I ended up doing:

I used silver posterboard to make a castle turret and then positioned our dining room table acting as a gift table in front of it.  I needed to get the dining room table out of the way to make room for a kids table. 

I had crowns for all the adults to wear :)  They were all good sports!

In the dining room I borrowed a kids table from church and then used a foam castle to make a centerpiece along with lots of foam stickers for the kids to decorate it.  I also draped the ceiling of the dining room in 5 different colors of tulle which created a canopy on the ceiling.

The place for each of the kids also had a crown that my mom made for each of them, along with little foam castles we had cut out for them to decorate as well as the one in the center.  There were also necklaces they could wear with their crowns.

On our door coming in, Poppop created a Coat of Arms for Madelyn (I had no idea he was so artistic!).  It included her all important cowboy boots and the tutu she got for her birthday :)

For food we ordered pizza (per the request of the birthday girl) but I also wanted to have fruit and found this great idea for fruit wands on pinterest.  Grandma and Mommom worked very hard the morning of the party to get these looking fabulous!

Instead of a cake, this year I picked up mini cupcakes from the Sweet Retreat (the same place I got Madelyn's teapot cake last year).  There were Choczilla, Vanilla Princess, and Salted Caramel.  They were all really good, but I think the salted caramel won the day with the adults.

Another idea I had gotten from Pinterest was to use little bracelets as the napkin rings and then let the kids take home the bracelets as favors.  I thought they turned out really cute!

I was a little worried about having 6 children hanging out, even though parents would be there as well, but the kids all got along really well and had a good time playing together.  Madelyn had a fantastic time at her party and has told me many times since then that she would like it to be her birthday again :)   Here are a few party pics of the kids enjoying the day.

Madelyn never lacked for assistance in opening gifts

All of the kids took decorating their castles very seriously

Cowboy hats definitely go with tutus!

Update:  I added some pictures my friend Elise (check out her blog) took at the party :)