A Very Elise Party

I always hope my kids will pick basically any other birthday option besides "giant party with all my friends inside the house." But since that's basically Elise's dream and since Covid robbed us of birthday parties for so long, I (mostly) happily went along with the fun! 

She ended up with eight friends who were able to attend (not including siblings). Since her party was unicorn themed, we started off by decorating unicorn horns (ice cream cones covered in icing and candy). 

Distributing candy to the partygoers

Ripley, Paul, Anuhea, Kelsey, Elise, Vivi (and her mom, Jessica), and River.

Luke was on the couch playing on an iPad.

Shocker.

Another shot of the unicorn horns. 

Elise had very specific requests for her birthday party. The first request was that we do a science experiment. The weather didn't cooperate for us to do anything cool outside, so we just did the food coloring, milk and dish soap experiment, which was more exciting for the guests than I expected (but dry ice would have been way cooler. Stupid 20 mph winds). 

The second was that she wanted a scavenger hunt. I put Jon in charge of that one and he did a great job putting together a bunch of clues about the unicorn we used to have. The kids had a blast racing all around the house to find the treasures. 

She also wanted a dance party, which they basically did when they all rushed down to the basement to dance to Encanto songs while wearing dress-up clothes. Hooray for checking all the boxes for the birthday girl!

And then it was time for the cake that Summer and I made. Don't be too impressed: the horn, ears and eyes are all things we just stuck on. My favorite decorating method:

I know every little girl has had this cake, but I still think it's adorable!

Elise with her cake (and Kelsey)

Singing Happy Birthday

Out go the candles!

Then it was time for the opening of gifts: massive amounts of dolls, unicorns, nailpolish, and all things adored by Elise. And also time for more chasing, screaming, and general mayhem. I told Jon that I think Elise's party was the loudest our house has ever been. And that's saying something. Her poor, shy friend Vivi (the one whose mom stayed) was probably traumatized.

Anuhea got to stay for dinner.

And to make charm bracelets!

Elise loved every minute of it. I'm so glad my little social butterfly could have all her friends over to party! It was literally her dream come true.