Maura's Kitty Party

SO EXCITED! My girl is SO EXCITED about her birthday this year. I actually don't think she's ever looked forward to something as much as she has looked forward to turning four. Part of the reason is that we were having a kitty cat party for her fourth birthday and kitties are her favorite thing in the universe(with the exception of her blanket) at the moment. We celebrated Maura birthday with a party this past Saturday, but those of you who know me well know that the birthday was NOT over on that one day. Stay tuned for more birthday extravaganza fun!!
Yes, it's blurry, but it's the only shot of Brent and I with our girl on party day. My girl is normally dour faced in photographs, but on this day she needed no urging to smile. I think she smiled the whole day. It's amazing to me that we brought this baby girl home as a tiny, less than eight pound bundle just four years ago. She has blessed our lives so much in the past four years and we can't thank God enough for her sweetness!
Maura with Grammy(who she now, inexplicably, calls Grandma) and Pappap.
The party food all set up and ready to devour. Mom, Lorie and Katie helped me so much to get ready for the party. Between them all, the house was cleaned from top to bottom, the food was finished, and the decorations went up. I couldn't have done it without them.
I LOVED the cat silhouettes. So cute!! We even had a cat chasing mice.
The party table with the stuffed kitties centerpiece. I loved how Katie put the paw print stickers on the table. Looks like a kitty just moseyed across.
When the kids arrived, they were able to pick out a cat to adopt. The "vet"(Katie) checked out the kitty to see if it was healthy, then asked the child to name it and sign an adoption certificate.
Katie did an awesome job as the vet. She handed the kids their kitty and a "collar" for the child to decorate with glitter glue. SO. MUCH. FUN!!
Tristan loved the excitement and general confusion of the day. He took advantage of the opportunity to get in lots of trouble while everyone else was preoccupied, but he had just as much fun as all the rest of the kids!
Our former neighbors Shauna, Emily and Sydney came to help celebrate.
Soon after they arrived, I asked the kids if they wanted to dress like kitties. Many of them were eager to don the ears, tails and whiskers and pretend to be a cat for the day. Lily made an adorable cat.
So did Addia...
Sarah...
and Lainey.

Uncle Micah and the sweetest kitty of the day, Alexandra. She wasn't sure what to make of all the confusion and noise, but she certainly had a lot to look at!
I sat the kids down once everyone got there and we talked about the types of things that kitties like and don't like. The kids were pretty good at this. They said kitties like mice, fish, balls, and playing. We decided that most kitties don't like dogs, which fit nicely into the first game, "Meow, meow, woof!"(Duck, duck, goose.) The kids who chose to play LOVED this game and had a great time running around the circle and getting to choose the next "it." We had lots of giggles and some near miss collisions!
Tag, Liam's it!!
Our next game was a string game. My sister, Katie, was good enough to set it up for me. Each child had a string that they had to follow in order to find a prize at the end. It was WAY harder than it looks and took each child FOREVER, but I think most of them liked the game.
Everyone kind of looked like Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment, just not quite as sexy!! The kids had a lot easier time maneuvering than us adults, but finally all the kids were able to find their toy mouse at the end of their strings.
We only let two kids on the string course at a time, so the rest of the kids colored kitty pictures that I'd printed off the Internet. I was surprised how many kids were willing to sit down and color in the middle of a party.
After most of the kids were finished with the string game, we took the kids outside and showed Maura her first present of the day, an inflatable house. She was so excited! Inflatables are almost always her favorite things to do at fairs and community gatherings and I love how worn out the kids get in them!! She could hardly stop jumping to give her guests a turn, but she eventually gave all her friends a chance to try out her new house. (The bouncy house took a sinister turn for her the very next day, however. After her nap on Sunday, I took her outside to bounce, but evidently didn't secure the blower to the bouncer very well. She was happily bouncing along when the blower became unhooked and the house started deflating around her. She started screaming and became more and more frantic as the walls closed in around her. I couldn't get to her quickly enough and she was absolutely terrified by the time I got her out. She was crying, but I was laughing so hard that I was peeing my pants. She could NOT see the humor in the situation, but both Brent and I couldn't stop laughing. It took her awhile to reassure herself that it wasn't going to happen again, but she finally got back in and tried it again.) Next, we played a relay race of sorts with litter box scoopers and balls.

Anyone who has tried a relay with a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds knows that they do NOT get team games and the concept of a race is lost upon most of them, but they all enjoyed running around with their scoops and balls.

We wound up the games with the parachute. I put some balls and toy mice in the parachute and we had fun bouncing them up in the air. After awhile, we told all the kids to get under the parachute and they loved having it come down on their heads.
For lunch, the kids all had a kitty cat pizza. I used red peppers for the whiskers and mouth, pepperoni for the ears, black olives for the eyes and a mushroom for the nose. I thought they turned out super cute and the kids liked them and all ate about two bites! They also ate goldfish crackers, cheese cubes, strawberry mice and Swedish fish.
Halfway through lunch, Nan and Poppa arrived from Tennessee and Maura left her pizza to race over for some hugs and lovin'. She was so excited to see them.
Payton certainly enjoyed his lunch.
Liam is a little camera shy, but I know he liked his pizza. The kids also got goldfish crackers, cheese cubes and strawberry mice for lunch. The adults ate baked rigatoni, and strawberry spinach salad. Yum.
I think this must be Jentry's sassy face!! She made it whenever I asked her to smile.
I thought the cupcakes turned out so cute. Maura definitely wanted pink and Grammy decorated them to her specifications.
I was really happy with how the cake turned out. I made it difficult for myself by adding the "hair" all over, but it looked really cute.
Maura was one happy present opening girl. Apparently she can smile whenever she looks at the camera, but you're guaranteed success only on her birthday!
Lots of presents means lots of fun opening gifts. Her friends weren't quite as enthused about it, so we tried to hurry it along.
Maura was SO excited when it came time to sing and blow out candles. She didn't stop smiling the whole time.
Concentrating on blowing out those candles! She got them all on the second attempt.
One of Maura's favorite gifts was from her Aunt Lorie. She bought Yukon Cornelius to go with Maura's Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. Maura almost hyperventilated when she opened the package!
Aunt Emily had a winner too, with Pegasus. We've been playing flying horse games ever since Saturday.
Aunt Katie brought Maura some Littlest Pet Shop toys that Maura and Tristan have fought over ever since! I actually had to put them up today before the kids came to blows over them! Thanks to Aunt Katie, Aunt Lorie and Grammy for helping to make the party possible. If it had just been up to me this year, the party would probably have been a pretty sad affair, but these ladies helped to make it truly special!
After everyone else left, Maura and Tristan were able to enjoy some great play time with Nan and Poppa. They both had so much fun playing with their grandparents!
Tristan got some special Poppa cuddles. Tristan was Poppa's boy on Saturday. Tristan wouldn't let anyone else do anything for him--only Poppa would do! We so appreciated the special effort they made to be with us for Maura's party! What a fun day! What an exhausting day! Brent and I put the kids to bed at 7pm and headed to be not too long afterward!