Bentley's 6th Birthday Party

Bentley's birthday party was the next weekend after Deacon's. So it's been a busy month! She wanted a princess party, and especially wanted a princess to come visit her at the party. So we decided together on Rapunzel and doing a Tangled party theme. I told her I would invite Rapunzel, but I wasn't sure if she would be able to make it because she is very busy! Luckily, she could make it, and sent a little video for Bentley to watch a week before her party. She told her she was coming to her party and they were gonna do makeup together, dance, read stories, and take pictures together. It was the cutest thing watching her watch the video!! She was thrilled!
Bentley has a lot of friends. I have had playgroups since she was a baby so she really wasn't lacking on who to invite. We invited her friends from church and the ones she always plays with and then I decided to let her invite some of the girls from school. In total, I let her invite 15 girls. Honestly, I thought maybe 10 or 12 would actually be able to make it in the end, but was pretty shocked when every single person responded yes they are coming, and showed up. It was quite a group, but luckily my mom came over to help me make sure everything ran smoothly!
I found some cute ideas on Pinterest for decorations, food, games, and party favors. During the week I tried to get as much ready as I could ahead of time. I got the party favors all done - I made bags with Pascal Party blowers (which I made myself, and it took forever!), watercolor paint, flower notepads, rings, and purple suckers. The night before was cleaning, reorganizing furniture, and decorating, and I was up pretty late getting everything ready! I cut up some yellow table cloths and hung it around the house so that it looked like Rapunzel's hair. I even strung some out the door so the girls could see it as they came to the door. I set up tables and decorated the food table area. 
Jeff took the boys away for the party because it was just too much to have them! The girls all showed up in their princess dresses and the first activity was painting lanterns. They really seemed to like that! Then, after a half hour Rapunzel showed up! The girls were very excited. She started with reading a book, then did all of their makeup, danced with them, and then took pictures with them. The girls each got to take home a polaroid with Rapunzel. We decided to do the "cake" with Rapunzel there too, which was actually donuts. I made Rapunzel's tower out of donuts because Bentley doesn't really like cake anymore I guess. 
After that we had lunch, which were Rapunzel braids (pretzels), jello boats, Maximus' apples, and yellow flower slushy. We also got sprinkle donuts for all of them instead of cake. It was a little chaotic after singing to Bentley that I didn't even get a good picture of the food! But the girls all loved it and ate for a while, and then played upstairs or down. Once the majority of the girls were done, we started games. We had them wrap each other up in "Rapunzel's hair" (streamers) and then I picked who was wrapped up the best. Then we had them throw lizards into frying pans and see how many they could get in. We also did a game where "mother gothel" was in the middle and everyone danced until the music stopped and they ran to a color poster board. Mother Gothel called out a color and whoever was standing on it had to join her in the tower. They all had a lot of fun. 
Then we did presents using spin the bottle. 15 presents is an awful lot!! Bentley got so spoiled and I don't think I'll need to give her anything until Christmas! 
I think she had a great time, although she was a little tired from not wanting to go to sleep the night before. It was a lot of work, but everyone said their kids had lots of fun so that was good to hear. I really enjoy doing parties and making my kids happy on their special day! They deserve to have a day all about them and know that they are loved!!

 Bentley is a very sweet girl, loves to have a plan or schedule, keeps her things organized, and is very obedient. She is very social, and is always asking to play or call her friends. We often let her video chat with her friends, and she just loves it! She's a lot of fun and loves to joke around. She is so smart and often times I don't think she was listening to something, but then she'll tell me about it later. She always tells us facts about space or other things that she learned at school. She really loves to learn! She is reading a lot of words and some really easy books she can finish completely by herself. She also loves attention and I think gifts are her love language. If she ever does something mean and she feels sorry, instead of telling us, she'll go write a card for us saying sorry and give it to us. She is having some struggles with emotions lately and has a hard time moving past something that she is mad about. One day she even packed her bag and told us she was moving to the neighbor's house because they probably have less rules than this house does. Lately we've put a handle on this and figured out how best to deal with it!
Overall, she is such a sweet, kind girl and a great big sister to her brothers. Her and Deacon are such good buddies, and she does a great job playing mom to Leo. Sometimes I will leave them all in babysitting and Leo will cling to Bentley. Bentley is so good about it and it's adorable that Leo feels like she can help him. 
I'm really proud of Bentley and her love for life. She is always up for doing something fun and thrives with one on one time. I think she will do amazing in school and always have lots of friends around her. My hope is that she will choose the right ones, and choose the right things, because once she makes up her mind about something, that's what she's doing! Her strong will could take her far.