Summer Kids Princess Dolly and Me Birthday Party

Summer really wanted a "drop-off" party this year.  I avoided the idea as long as possible ;), but we finally decided to do a "Dolly and Me" theme birthday party.  Party planning is not normally my thing, but I will admit that I actually had a lot of fun planning it together with Summer!  The party was set for 4-6pm, on August 6th. 

Summer requested that girls dress up in princess attire and bring along their favorite doll. 

When guests arrived, both the girls and the dolls each got a name-tag.

Then, Summer brought the girls out to the backyard where we had two craft tables set up.  At one craft table, the girls made made matching party hats for them and their dolls.

From a large batch of solid colored party hats, I trimmed off the bottoms of half of them and re-taped on the elastic string to make dolly size and kid size party hats. 

The girls used stickers and pom - poms to decorate the hats,

The second craft table had beads, both with letters to spell out their doll's names as well as other fun beads, so that the girls could make necklaces for their dolls.

Summer's friend Kate made this necklace for Pinky and I thought it turned out really cute!

 After everyone had arrived, we took a group photo!

Then, the girls divided into groups based on the color star on their name tags, and did a "doll and me" photo scavenger hunt.  They had to take pictures of themselves and their dolls doing various things, such as....

jumping

reading

climbing a tree

hide and seek

cooking

making a pyramid

with party hats

dancing

After the scavenger hung, group leaders all handed their cell phones and cords to Paul who put all the pictures into a slideshow while the girls ate dinner.  One of my favorite parts of the party to plan for was dinner.  Summer chose for her menu, hotdogs, watermelon, chips and cupcakes.  I had fun trying to make everything the girls ate, also in doll size.

For table setting, Grandpa T fashioned a dolly size table out of a piece of plywood set on step stools, and seats out of two more boards propped up on rolls of duck tape. Covered with a table cloth it looked like a picnic table!  I ordered paper plates in a 4inch size for the dolly plates, disposable neon shot glasses that matched the girls cups (which worked perfectly for dolly cups), a large pack of disposable taster spoons and appetizer forks for the dolly silverware, and I just cut the same napkins the girls used into smaller sizes for the dolls.

The girls had hotdogs, watermelon, and chips.

The dollies had the same meal. 

Hotdogs were made out of smokey links, buns cut to size, watermelon cut to size, and crumbled chips in dolly size serving bowls (i.e. my kids' bowls).

Summer's doll Laura with her meal.

Summer with her meal.

I made regular and mini cupcakes.  Summer's doll Laura chose chocolate and Summer chose confetti vanilla :)

The girls all gathered around as all the dolls sang happy birthday to doll Laura.  Summer helped Laura blow out her candle :)

The girls all chose cupcakes for their dolls and added them to their plates.

Then we sang to Summer and the girls got to choose which flavor cupcake they wanted for themselves.

Mid-cupcake picture with the birthday girl and mom and dad :)

Mid cupcake photo with the two amazing grandmas!

Of course the girls had to help their dollies finish their meals ;).  The girls commented, "the hotdogs taste real!" and attempted to allow their dollies to drink the water in the dolly cups ;).  They all seemed to enjoy munching the dolly size chips and watermelon, but I think the dolly size cupcakes were the best!  Here is Summer eating her dolly's cupcake with the dolly's fork :)

While the girls ate, Paul put all the photos/video from the scavenger hunt into a slideshow for later.  Then the girls had some free play time with their dolls in our backyard. 

 Then the girls came in to watch the photo scavenger hunt pictures that Paul made into a slideshow.  Several pictures got giggles and the videos of the dolly ring-around-the-rosy and happy birthday songs were fun to watch too!

Watching the scavenger hunt slideshow.

Then Summer handed out the party favors.  Because all of the dolly paper goods came in large packs, we just used the extras as party favors so the dolls could take home one doll place setting.  We added in a dolly truffle/cupcake to complete the party favor.  This picture was taken from the day Summer made up the party favors.

The favors looked like this after Summer put them all together.

While it was a lot of work, it was all made worth it when I saw how much Summer enjoyed it!  When asked her favorite part, she said, "all of it!"  I am so grateful for all the help I had setting up, running the party, and taking pictures.  I couldn't have done it without the amazing help of our grandparents!  Grandpa T set up the whole backyard for us, as well as fashioned the dolly picnic table out of plywood and duck tape :).  Grandpa K cut the dolly and girl size watermelon and along with Grandpa T, took excellent care of Colton and Larkyn during the party.  Grandma T and Grandma K manned the craft tables, each took their own group of girls for the photo scavenger hunt group, and helped with serving dinner.  A special thank you, too, to Grandma K who took all these pictures of the party.  Thank you also to all who came and made our little girl feel so special!