Beatrice's Bookworm Ball

There are several many things that Beatrice loves.  "Books" and "Family Praise Night" are pretty close to the top of the list, so for her birthday party she decided she wanted "Stories and Songs" and so we hosted Beatrice's Bookworm Ball.

As this year her guest list had extended to include some friends from school we knew that if the weather turned inclement we wouldn't all fit in our house....so for the first time ever, Bea's birthday party was in the church.

There were lots of book themed crafts to do...

Like creating your own buggy finger puppets at the "Bugs" book table...

Or,  decorating a gingerbread man at the "Gingerbread Man" story table...

Or, painting a suncatcher at the "Sunny Day" book table...

Or playing with Red, her Granny, the woodcutter and the wolf at the "Little Red Riding Hood" table...

You could of course sing "One, two, three, four, five, once I caught a fish alive" as you fished...

(or you may prefer, "five little ducks went swimming one day")

Or, you could bling up a cupcake in honour of "Camilla the Cupcake Fairy"

But if arts and crafts weren't really your thing and you were feeling a little overwhelmed / shy / bookish.... you could escape into a little book nook and just enjoy some picture books....

To create the book nooks, we brought Bea's wigwam and fairy tent.

(door open...)

(door closed...)

Peekaboo!

*******

To start the "stories" part of the party, Beatrice led her friends down the yellow brick road to Oz (aka the chapel) where Mr Hullaballoo was waiting.

(but first of course, we had to make the yellow brick road...it was hard work, but thankfully Bea had her friend to help her)

At the end of the yellow brick road, Mr Hullaballoo created the cast of "The Wizard of Oz" from amongst the party guests and his handy store of puppets.

The actors watched ....

...and acted out the story with Mr Hullaballoo

The Tin Man needed a little oiling...

...and the lion tried to be very brave...

...but only really managed to be very cute...

...and there were a couple of cheeky monkeys to try to capture Dorothy...

At the end of the story, Jingles and Mr Hullaballoo gave Bea a birthday present...

(which turned out to be a Wizard of Oz storybook....perfect)

Then all of the guest, even the particularly starstruck or shy could meet Mr Hullaballoo and Jingles and have their photo taken with him...

Starstruck

Shy

*****

After the stories, it was time for the songs, or for those of us who speak the lingo....Family Praise Night (in the morning).  The kids made their way into the church where the kids praise band played several praise songs and then Katrina belted out Let it Go (as a special birthday surprise) 

If you would like to see some of the stories and songs, click HERE

*****

Then it was back into the hall for party food...

(and yes Phoebe...I did make Rice Krispie buns JUST FOR YOU!)

Bea and I painted paper lantern as rainbows and made some tissue flowers to decorate the hall....

...and of course we stuck up our bunting!

We used jam jars for the drinks and made some vases to decorate the tables...

(while tidying up at the end)

Now I love bunting, so there was a little bit of rainbow bunting on the cake (which was rainbow sponge inside....and which I didn't take a photo of) which was sitting above a yellow brick road.  I had found a lalaloopsy Dorothy and Tin man (Tinny Ticker - she is a girl) for the top of the cake.

The very beautiful cake pops were by Carol.  You can also see the "party bags" which were books (did you guess?)

If that wasn't enough sugar, we also had a Willy Wonka ice cream and jelly bar with lots of little sweets for you to add to your desert.

We sang happy birthday!

There was then time to go and do any of the crafts you liked...

We concluded with the piñata....or as I think of him....THE DONKEY THAT WOULD NOT DIE!!!

Honestly, even after Jonathan had attacked him with a pair of scissors, it took five more minutes of ferocious bashing before he yielded any sweets...as soon as the first goodies fell the children descended on the treasure and the adults all rushed to the donkey to tear him apart.

Yet, still he endured for a further half hour!

You can see his downfall by clicking HERE