Because this recap is way overdue, I’m going to combine her party recap and her actual birthday recap in one post!

the party

In April, we threw A a big 5th birthday party in our backyard. Other than her 1st birthday dohl (which has cultural significance, hence the big party), she hasn’t had a big birthday party before. Last year we did a small playdate style party but it was SUPER low-key.

This year’s party was the opposite of low key 😂 It was, in fact, high key. Major key? I don’t know what the lingo these days is. A N Y W A Y.

I had a lot of people tell me that this party was “all out” and must have taken so much planning, etc. But let me fill you in on a little secret … uh … this is literally the exact same party that I threw for E’s 5th birthday. Like down to the hired princess performers, bounce house, custom princess cookies … all of it. I just did a rinse, wash, repeat 6 years later. So there wasn’t much to think about and “plan” (which is always the hard part for me). I just had to make some calls and book vendors.

First things first, here’s the outfit that I wore! I started with jeans but the weather this day was way warmer than I’d anticipated (especially considering it was mid April!) so I switched to shorts.

One thing that was different from A’s party versus E’s is that for E’s 5th birthday back in 2016, I actually hired a florist and had beautiful flowers decorating my entire backyard and backyard gate for the party. It was stupidly expensive albeit gorgeous so for A’s 5th bday, I went with a balloon company to do some custom balloon garlands and arches. Here’s the pastel rainbow I had for our backyard entryway:

And here is the garland I had for the main dessert table … the colors matched the Rapunzel/Elsa two-tier cake we had. Also, if you notice A in several different dresses throughout these photos, she changed multiple times throughout her party. I didn’t even notice she was doing it; she’d just run into her room and wear something different and come out 🙄

Here’s the cake since I didn’t have it set out until later!

For food, I had some chips/snacks laid out for people to munch on but left a lot of the table empty because I’d catered Blue Line Pizza to come deliver a bunch of food halfway through the party.

I ordered some cute princess themed tableware and party favor goodie bags from Meri Meri and had the goodie bags set up so the kiddos could fill them with their pinata loot at the end of the party.

Guests also got to take home a custom princess/Disney themed cookie made by my talented friend Stephanie @dalkomhaus (IG). The cookies were seriously mind-blowingly pretty… AND they tasted amazing!

I had a GIANT bounce house/slide combo set up on our basketball court… honestly, I knew it would be big but didn’t realize HOW big?! It was almost as tall as some of the giant pine trees in our backyard LOL!

The best part of the party, I think, was the hired princess performers, though. I’ve always hired through The Cinderella Company and have never been disappointed. A wanted Rapunzel and Elsa to come, so that’s who we had come … the princesses did a story time, ribbon dancing, face painting, posed for photos, and were just in general amazing entertainment for a bunch of 4 & 5 year olds.

As you can see, I invited all our party guests to dress up as their favorite princesses as well and also let families bring any siblings. We had a bunch of 1st & 2nd graders (some of who were D’s friends from preschool!) running all up and down our giant hill and getting sweaty. It was a perfect, chill way to celebrate an easy time together!

About an hour or so into the party, our food from Blue Line Pizza arrived! I was asked several times if Blue Line delivers and you know, the answer actually is no – my address is outside of their delivery zone. BUT I went in person to place the catering order (which was quite large) so they said for a fee they’d deliver it for me. So good, so worth it! Everyone went home very full which is a win in my book 😉

After eating, it was time for cake & birthday song!

Finished off with pinata 🙂 I did a ribbon pull pinata (instead of the kind you beat with a bat) and what would you know – big sister E pulled the winning tab at the very end!

Our big FIVE year old having the time of her life!

People hung around for a little bit after we did pinata but most left as by this point the princesses had made their departure. We cleaned up a bit and then let A settle down to open up her presents .. she’d been eyeing her pile for the entire party so we finally put her out of her misery hahhaha. She got so many wonderful presents!

Little A, we hope you had the BEST time celebrating your 5th birthday! Mommy & daddy love spoiling you 🤍

the day of

The party was the weekend before A’s actual birthday, so on the day of her party, I of course had our Sophisu family tradition of birthday balloons + presents waiting in front of her door.

Now, normally (at least for our big kids), the birthday kid would open their bedroom door in the AM and find their balloons and gifts. A is still at the age when she needs to be woken up for school so we actually went in and woke her up and told her to check out her door.

Here is our sleepy head waking up on the morning of her birthday 🙂

She wanted waffles and bacon for breakfast so Daddy whipped those up for her and I had a mini Elsa balloon waiting by her seat on the table LOL. We sang happy birthday to her before eating!

Birthday cutie getting some love from everyone

Then we sent all the kiddos off to school for the day … after school, guess what A wanted to do? You named it, OPEN PRESENTS 😂 Who wants to bet she was thinking about that pile of presents all day until she got home?

She was showered with lots of fun things but two specific gifts I want to highlight for you guys! First is this GIANT squishmallow unicorn that my brother in law/sister in law sent her. She’s been sleeping with it every night sine we got it and she LOVES sleeping on TOP of it 😂.

The other one is this toy called a Tonies Box.. I know, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably scratching your head and wondering what in the heckinbob is a Tonies Box. It’s a little box that has ears and the whole concept is screen-free playtime for your kids. There are little “Tonies” figurines and each one plays a different story and/or sings different songs. Your kid can easily switch out the figurine to change the story … and they can control volume/skip/FF/rewind/etc by tweaking the ears, tilting the box, or smacking the side of the box. A LOVES smacking the box because it feels naughty but you’re supposed to do it 😂 I found out about this toy on TikTok and bought it for her to try and now we have two Tonies Boxes because all three of my kids are obsessed with them. Our favorite Tonies figurines are the Disney themed ones … they give a short (30 mins?) recap of the story and have songs from the movies woven in too. It’s basically an audio book that they can control themselves!

As a side note – I do recommend purchasing directly from the Tonies website. You can find them on Amazon but they’re usually way overpriced by resellers!

After gifts, we went out for family dinner at a local Italian restaurant. The food was SO good .. I actually really want to go back for a GNO or date night sometime. But anyway, our birthday girl loves spaghetti/pasta so we found a place that offered that.

Happiest of 5th birthdays to our sweet little maknae!