I had a lot of fun planning Geneva’s birthday party this year! I put more into it than I had in past years, because of her age and because I reeeally like this sort of thing, and also because I really like celebrating my kiddos. Making them feel special really does makes an impact, Geneva kept saying “You did this all for me?!” Warms my heart.

We started by Geneva’s wonderful Mimi reading some Angelina Ballerina books while we were waiting for all the guests to arrive.

In the original story, Angelina’s parents surprise her one day by presenting her with a large box with a pink tutu inside, and telling her she could start taking ballet classes. So after the stories were over we also brought out a huge box filled with pink tutus I had made for all the girls (my main labor of love for this party, since they took about 3+ hours each to make, and yes I made 12!) and then told them they were going to get to go to ballet class that day as well!

Two of our dear friends, Hannah (14) and Brynna (10) offered to be our helpers for the party, and since Hannah had taken ballet before I asked her to be our Ballet Mistress and lead the class for the girls. They stretched like butterflies, and learned the basic positions and how to plie, grand jete, arabesque, pirouette, and curtsy. Fun!

Next we played two ballet themed games. The first is Ballerina Balloon Relay: First you divide ballerinas into teams and line them up.

Give the first ballerina of each team a balloon and when you say “Go” they must kick balloon across the room to the ballet mistresses. When they arrive they must do 1 plie’, 1 arabesque, and 1 spin, and kick the balloon back to the next ballerina on their team who repeats the process to the next ballerina in line. Whichever teams gets through all of their ballerinas first wins!

This was a lot of fun, so we played it twice and amazingly both teams won a game, so everyone got a prize.

The second game we played was called Around the Dance Floor. Before the party we taped down squares in a long path around your floor. Every 5th square has an X drawn on it. Play fun ballet music 10 seconds at a time while the girls dance from square to square. When the music is stopped, they have to stay on their square. If it has an X, they have to go back to start. The first girl around the board wins!

Next, in preparation for our Butterfly Ballerina Ballet Performance at the end of the party!, all the girls painted and bejeweled their own butterfly masks.

I pre-painted the main parts of the butterflies prior to the party, otherwise this would have taken too long and been too messy. The girls had a blast! And all the masks turned out really cute.

Even our ballet mistresses got in on the fun!

A well earned reward for patient ballerinas – it was finally time to EAT!

Geneva had a great time blowing out her five sparkly candles.

Opening presents with 5 year old girls is always hilarious – a more excited, squeely, mini mob you’ll never find!

The party’s grand finale was a ballet performance by the girls. Here’s the overview from my outline (since we only took video):

Before the performance, teach the routine and assign each girl one move that they learned earlier in the day. After the music starts, each ballerina hides in the living room behind the tulle. One by one, each ballerina will come out with her butterfly mask, do her “move” in center stage, and then dance like a butterfly, flutter around the flowers, etc. for ~10 seconds. Then the ballerina will come sit on her mark on the floor – all the girls together will make a complete circle – put their mask in the middle of the circle, and do the butterfly legs stretch while they wait for all the other dancers to join them.  When all the girls are on their mark, have them stand up and hold hands and dance in a circle. Ta-Da! Have everyone curtsy to applause!

Every dancer was given a pink carnation at the end of the performance, just like a real ballerina! (The flowers were such a hit, it might have been some of the girls’ favorite part!)

Such great little dancers! (sadly not all of them made it into the picture)

A wonderful birthday morning all around! Big thanks to Mimi and Papa for making the trip to celebrate with us!

and a big thanks to Michael, without whom I wouldn’t have pulled off this party! And who took pictures when I wasn’t able!

Happy 5th birthday, Geneva!! We adore and treasure you!