{Gratitude} For My Sweet Little Ava As She Turns 5!

I say this every year so why stop now; "Where has time gone?!" I blinked and my daughter who turned 4 like two seconds ago is now celebrating her 5th birthday! I cannot sum up in words my love and adoration for this girl. I lovingly refer to her as my sweet little bird (because her name means "like a bird") and so we play off that for her 5th birthday. Conveiniently she wanted an "Owl Party", probably due to watching the movie "Legend of the Guardians", but it was the perfect fit for a Night Owl Pajama Party with all her girl cousins plus her friend Kylie...and so she and I got busy on the planning. Her demands were very easy to meet: an icecream sundae bar with LOTS of toppings instead of a cake, a craft, and her "ava music" i.e. disney princess c.d.'s and the 'Jesus loves Ava' c.d. that her aunt and uncle bought her a few years ago, the only request that I didn't fulfill was for mashed potatoes to be served, partly because she requested them only while she was eating them at the time we made our list.

So we set out to Hobby Lobby to find some Owl inspiration, Ava was so excited to spot this cute fabric and I was probably even more excited to get to make the invitations out of it! No sewing was involved here, just my awesome poems skills and a gluegun.

-the 'pillow' invites turned out beautifully and Ava enjoyed the silly poem-



Ava was so proud to write her friends' names on the envelopes
and took her job of deciding which invite goes to who VERY seriously!







-then came her favorite part-



As if the invites weren't fun enough to create now we got to think of the party itself, I looked online and added some of my own flair, and could hardly wait to show my girl all that was in store for her big day. She had dance class the morning of the party so daddy took her there with little sis while I put all the decor up, she walked in and said, "Wow! mommy this looks great!...I can't believe my owl party is today!!!" I know time can drag on when kids are waiting for something fun (like Christmas) so for the past week we didn't mention the party because Ava was getting too antsy and so she was SO thrilled that the day had finally arrived. I styled her hair to her liking, dressed her up in her pj's and took a few quick pictures before the guests arrived.



{snack table}



{Ready for guests to arrive}

{Party Room}

{Goody Bags by the door, ready to be filled!}



Our first guest has arrived!

and another...

and some more!

okay, NOW it's time to party!

We started off the night with a pillowcase race, hopping to one end of the backyard to get an 'owl egg' to return to it's nest. Ava and Kylie wanted nothing to do with the race...but were all over the prizes: Owl Hair clips!

These were SOOO easy to make, I just glued some ribbon and a felt owl to a hairclip.

Next it was time to come in for a craft. Ava was aboslutely stuck on the idea of decorating pillowcases and I'm glad she was, the girls were totally into it and the mamas got to enjoy some drinks and fondue while the girls created their own masterpieces.

Showing how to use the stencils...they were sticker ones and worked great.

Eliyana was too into it to even look up for a picture! :)

After the girls finished up their pillows and put them in their goody bags it was their turn to have some fondue and snacks. I snuck outside to hide more baby owls for them to hunt in teams with flashlights, they looked so cute and both teams tied with 8 owls each, good thing I had lots of prizes! 

Holding the flashlight was pretty fun so we had to take turns.

these girls searched high and low!



Yeah baby! We all get a prize!

As soon as the hunting was done the girls had to walk through the dark house in search of a glow-in-the-dark star with a number on it, they all sat on the couch wondering what the numbers were for and I could not wait to show them!!! I had been working on these for weeks and kept them hidden from Ava to be sure it stayed a surprise. They each got to open a new owl friend with their matching number on it. Each owl came with a poem describing what kind of owl it was, this idea I saw online and it was so cheap and fun to do! We started out with the birthday girl and everyone waited their turns so nicely...

Ava got the 'Dancing Owl' and named her Kelly :)

Kylie won the 'Musical Owl' & named her Lulu, I swear I didn't influence her!

Abby got the 'Snuggle Owl'...too perfect for her!



{watching her friends }



Julia got the 'Giggle Owl' Cloee got the 'Crafty Owl' and Eliyana got the 'Dress-Up' Owl

After all the Owl fun the girls took their new friends into the kitchen for Icecream Sundaes!

They were all getting pretty silly by this point!

{Time for presents!}







When the presents were all opened you girls went to the room to play with the new karaoke machine daddy and I got you. You all sounded so cute singing tunes and giggling, the sound of 6 little girls up past their bedtimes, full of sugar and having a blast!

Before too long Daddy and Elijah were back home and it was time to say farewell to all the Night Owls, our night was still far from over though, Elijah couldn't wait to decorate his own pillowcase and have a sundae. You and I sang in your bedroom for awhile before bedtime.

After that it was time to crash! We were so tired and had way too much fun with all of our girlfriends.

Daddy and I were almost done picking up the last of the mess when I kept hearing something in Elijah's room so I went in to check on him, only to find he had helped himself to the prize basket and dug out all the glow sticks. I said "What are you doing in here?! It's late!" and his response was a very defensive "I'm being Wolverine!" I had to laugh and grabbed my camera to take a picture, although he wouldn't smile for the camera because "Wolverine doesn't smile".



At that our night was complete! Good Night! :)