Party Girl

Today was Rachel's long-awaited birthday party.  Granny made her a most fabulous cupcake dress and we had cupcake plates and napkins and I made 7 minute frosting this morning, so Rachel was READY!

For the past couple of years Rachel has been totally obssesed with I Spy books. We have at least a dozen of them and she looks at them every day, even though I'm sure she has memorized the location of each object on every page.  She loves to play I Spy at church or around the house.  She loves it when I hide little objects and she has to find them.  Let's just say her visual scanning skills are excellent!  I decided that it might be fun to have an I Spy birthday.  So we did!  Here are the invitations:

And here is the cake:

(And how did I collect all those different candies for free?  I raided the girls' Halloween buckets and I sent an e-mail out at work, asking my teacher friends to share a piece or two of any candy they had at school.  They brought me whole piles of it!)

Rachel thought it was all a terrific idea.  Now she could even play I Spy on her cake!

But first, there were presents to open.

She found lots of clothes and some games and another I Spy book.

And then there were three more pairs of "click clack shoes"! She wears her plastic dress-up shoes as much as possible.  In fact, she has loved them to pieces.  Literally.  Click clack shoes were her one request for her birthday.  So she was a happy kid.

There was time to hang out with the cousins and Aunt Robie...

...and Grandpa and Grandma.

And then it was time for the I Spy cake!

Happy 4, Rachel!

Everyone chose which section of the cake they wanted by the candies on top.  Rachel picked the gumball eyeball.  Of course.  But it was pretty tasty.

It was a festive day.  And the Party Girl was pleased.