Princess in Pigtails

Happy Bday E!  I love the look of wonder and joy on her face.

We celebrated E.'s birthday today.  I've referred to her before as a princess and she couldn't have looked cuter than she did today in her little pigtails.  She turned 4 years old (recently)!  It was fun how excited that she was the whole day as we celebrated her, even though I'm not entirely positive that she understands exactly what a birthday is.  She just knows that it was fun and boy was she excited for it!

Here are a five simple tips for making a fun birthday celebration for a four year old girl:

Pink!

1.  Think Pink:

Little girls love the color pink.  They also like sparkly things and they like princesses.  Please note that E. got a pink princess cake and got to wear a pink sparkly shirt.  We're already off to a great start!

Here's a funny little story about E.'s birthday celebration.  She picked out the pink princess cake all by herself.  When it came time to pick the balloons for her birthday, however, E. picked some Angry Birds balloons because she said that she wanted R. and S. to enjoy them.  I thought that that was very sweet and cute of her to think about her brothers on her birthday.  Sometimes you just get lucky and you get kids that are a lot more awesome than you deserve as a parent!  :-)

2.  Keep the Festivities Ongoing:

That way no one gets too bored.  E. started by opening presents with the fam earlier in the day.  Later, we went to Chuck E. Cheese.  All in all, the festivities lasted 6-7 hours.  Nearly enough for dad to come home with a headache from all the booyah at Chuck E. Cheese's!  E., however, didn't seem to mind--at least until bedtime.  At which point, I realized that maybe getting her all tuckered out might not have been the best strategy after all!

Opening Presents...

3. Let Someone Else Do All The Work:

And by someone else, I mean Chuck E. Cheese!  Yes, nothing says "Keep it Classy, San Diego" like taking your kids to Chuck E. Cheese for their birthday party.  I remember going to this fine establishment when I was a kid, but I think the place is even more white trash now.

The kids, however, don't seem to mind.  They run around, grubbing after those tickets that the skee-ball games (and other arcade games) spit out and then you get to spend 30 minutes shoving tickets into the ticket counter so that your kids can get a 25 cent prize like a cheap pair of plastic fangs or an eraser.  Remember to bring some friends to keep your kids occupied.

E. Took Ride After Ride on the Merry-Go-Round

I don't think that I could have kept E. off the merry-go-round if I'd tried.  She must've pumped about $10 worth of tokens into that thing.  At one point, I had to get her off of it so that another group of kids could use it.  I wasn't sure if she was ever going to forgive me--or get over her despondency!

Luckily, we found the "Etch-A-Sketch" machine (see the first pic above) and I was able to distract E. for a few minutes until we could get back on the merry-go-round.

If you're really lucky, your kids' friends will bring their parents so you have someone to talk to--thanks Royal and Nicole!

4.  When in Rome?

Try to maintain a sense of dignity at a place like Chuck E. Cheese, even though that can be hard to do.  Here are my top 4 white trash moments from our afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese's:

#4 - Having to kneel down to shove literally hundreds of paper tickets into the ticket counting machine so that my kids could by their cheap plastic prizes.  Not only did I have to wait about 30 minutes to complete this ordeal (between waiting for the people in line ahead of me and then to get my own tickets counted), but--to make matters worse, I was getting trampled by the people waiting behind me in line.

Literally, the parents of these kids just watched their kids step on me, trip over me, and trample over me.  I couldn't believe it!  I was never so happy as to see the last of our tickets get sucked into that dang machine!  Then I got out of there as fast as I could!

#3 - Seeing a dad take his kid into the bathroom and then whisk him out of the bathroom with nary a glance in the direction of the faucet.  I sure hope that they weren't planning on eating off those hands!  Is it any wonder that I made sure to wash my hands very well before I ate?!

#2 - Getting the high score in both the basketball shooting game and the football throwing game.  I guess it's a measure of how few games there were that were even somewhat interesting for adults.  Mostly, I played with R. and that was a lot of fun.  The white trashiness is that I was actually proud to pull off those accomplishments.  But I couldn't really help myself!

#1 - Many of the people themselves.  Sorry I couldn't get any pictures, but my favorite was the woman with 3 inch letters--in gang-style font--tattooed over her chest.  I can't even imagine where she came up with the inspiration for that!

5.  Remember It's About the Kids:

My personal belief was that we stayed about 30 minutes too long, but the kids were having a blast.  E. is only four, so I wonder whether she will remember anything from her bday celebration this year at all.  But I'm pretty sure that if she does, they'll be happy memories.  And that's what matters the most!  :-)