Finally, the birthday pictures

Princess Aubie, for whom this royal celebration was held.


Princess Aubie and Aunt KK (thanks, Aunt Karen for all the great photos! I wouldn't have near so many if not for you!)


Three pretty princesses : Princess Jill, Princess Aubie, and Princess Harlee.

Crown or Kiss the Frog Prince. The boys crowned him, the girls kissed him. They were all blindfolded (except Isabella) and nobody cheated!

Roman was the first to go and he got the closest for the boys. Here he is laughing at where he put the crown.
Aubie after her turn. Ellabella "kissing" the frog.

After that it was lunch, and then the Pinata! Instead of letting a bunch of children under 5 (except Jill, she is 5)violently swinging a stick around, I opted for the pull string pinata. Isabella loved twirling in the ribbons. King Daniel, Princess Aubie, and Princess Jill. Thank goodness Mom had an extra crown around. Daniel didn't want to just be a knight, he wanted to be a king! Jill and Aubie getting ready to eat cake!


Princess Aubie's castle... cake.

Aubie looking shy during the "Happy Birthday" song.


Matthan woke up in time to watch Aubie open presents. He looks a bit like his Daddy does when he wakes up from a nap--Grumpy!


Aubie opening presents. Kelly drew the cutest little princess--I had to take a picture.

Aubie loves her Cinderella dress from Jill and Daniel.


A cute picture of Wendy : ) Ellabella was happy to be a princess when she got there, but after her crown broke, she decided to leave as a knight.

3 Fun Crafts from this post:
This is the before shot of the pinata. Aubie had really wanted castle pinata, but 20 bucks on something that is just for getting candy out of... I'd come out way better (and have about as much fun) by just throwing candy in the air. But when Mom gave us this for recycling, the squares on the box looked sort of like blocks to me, and it got me thinking. So, I turned it upside down, attached 2 paper towel rolls (I also took a roll apart to make the cones for the tops), spray painted it pink, painted some castle-y blocks on it with pink and purple, and used this website to figure out how to make a pull-string pinata.
For the knights cloaks, I used some felt I had for the crosses, some (brand-new) flannel I got on freecycle, and since flannel doesn't ravel that easily, I didn't even finish the edges. I had the red and white ribbon, and I made some little drawstring pouches to keep coins in(these actually held Princess fruit snacks). Leah found the adorable horses at the Dollar Tree--not a craft, but I thought I'd mention them.
And then the cake. I got the design from Family Fun. But everyone who reviewed the recipe said that the 4!!! square cakes that it took to make it needed to be made of something sturdier like pound cake. I wanted to make this cake, but I was definitely not having time to slave over 4 cakes! So I remembered a little trick from my cake decorating class and I used 2 SaraLee family size pound cakes. It wasn't pink strawberry, and was definitely a lot smaller, but it was just the right size and we weren't stuck eating birthday cake for days on end. : )