Olivia's 6 1/2 Birthday Party

Olivia really wanted to have a birthday party in Abu Dhabi with all of her friends here.  Everyone scatters away from the heat during the summer here. In years past, I have always brought cupcakes to school on her half birthday, because her birthday is in the middle of the summer.   So, I suggested having a small little "1/2 birthday party".  I was thinking it would be a glorified playdate.  As the ball got rolling, it turned into a full blown party, everyone invited.  She kept coming back with more girls she wanted to invite and she wanted to include girls that had heard about her party and were sad they weren't invited....so here we go!  She had it all planned out how she wanted it to be.  She wanted to have a gardening party with pancakes and she wanted the O in her name to look like a flower on the envelope of the invitation.  I took her vision and ran!

 Butterfly and flower cookies as one of the party favors

 Front door

 After they used the gardening gloves, they found the bag with their name so they could take them home

 All of the pots, ready to be decorated!  My awesome friend Christa made the vinyl letter names for me with her handy dandy vinyl cutting machine.  Everyone tried to talk me out of it, but I wanted bigger pots and I wanted them pink, like the invitation!  It actually wasn't too hard spray painting them.

 Cupcakes!

 Ready for 16 girls to come have pancakes!

 Yummy spread for the mommies

 Busy decorating

 We had a couple paint tubes explode!  Thank goodness it was washable

 Nina, Amna, and O

 Love all of my Mommy friends

 Having yummy pancakes made by Mike, per Olivia's request

 Sweet friend, Audrey.  She is my friend Christa's 3rd grade daughter.  She was a sport coming to a 1st grade birthday party.  O was excited a big girl was there!

 Doling out syrup

 Silly sister insisted Daddy come sit next to her

 Gillian, Alzain, and O

 Getting her flowers put on

 Bellies full, time for gardening

Flowers and dirt, ready to go!

 What would I have done without my sweet sweet friends, Christa and Linda?  They both just jumped in and got down in the dirt and helped all these little gals garden

 Mrs. Linda, O and Sophia

 Beautiful!  She was so proud!

 I love this picture of sweet friend, Naia

 I loved seeing all of their cute pots and flowers

 Miss E

 Love my big girl!

Cute!

 

 Aman and Ayesha

 Eliza (!) and Chetna

 Mrs. Linda and Heather

Mommy selfie

 Nina and Amna

 Jawaher arrived late and my sweet girl took her to each station and made sure she got her flowers potted

Finished product!

 Cupcake time!

 She was so cute looking up at me with this huge smile.  I love making her feel special!

Yummy!

Such a ham!

Love my little family!

The fun continued upstairs after cupcakes! O, Tala and Gillian

This was the next day.  I completely forgot about a flower craft I had prepared for the girls to do at the party.  Oh well, my girls had fun doing a few!