Ruthie's Party

We had a wonderful time celebrating Ruthie's birthday last weekend. We had more than 40 friends and family to help with the fun. For a few hours, our house did indeed become "The Happiest Place on Earth."

Here is our family - Ian, if you can't tell, is the Mad Hatter and Ruthie, Jonah and I are sporting our Disneyland shirts.

Ian's grandparents from Colorado were in town already for Christmas so they were able to make it as well. Ruthie had four grandparents and two great-grandparents at her party. That's pretty amazing! We're so thankful for the great family we have, both near and far. Here's Great-Grandmother, meeting Jonah for the first time. 

The main thing that made this party Disneyland themed was the food - we had a popcorn machine, giant pickles, churros, corn dogs, pizza from the Pizza Port, bread bowls with soup from the Terrace Veranda and of course, cotton candy. Here's my dad, by the cotton candy "stand," enjoying a corn dog.

Enjoying the "Pizza Port" is Ryan and Cari Noble (Cari is a co-teacher of Ian's) and my sister Sarah, who was manning the station.

Aforementioned corn dog "cart."

We also made special maps (I took a bunch from Disneyland then typed up my own map of "Ruthie's Magic Kingdom" and taped them inside the maps), which featured our own World Famous Autopia. You can see the track and cars in this photo below. 

Naturally, we had a parade down Main Street, led by the Mad Hatter. Each of the kids had musical instruments and we played the sound track to the parade on our cd player.

And of course, we had cake. I tried to make it look like a castle and surrounding village. It came out okay. =)

I should clarify - it looked okay; it tasted great. Ruthie really enjoyed it. Not sure why she didn't want to use her hands; she actually ate her whole piece just by putting her face in the cake. 

We ended with gifts - Ruthie received really great gifts and she's been enjoying them all tremendously. New books, Duplos, a Playmobile doll house, coloring books, a Princess tent, puzzles, cooking toys, and more. We are so grateful for such generous friends and family!

It was a very fun time and we know our girl enjoyed herself. We're already working on Jonah's 1st birthday theme. In the running are "Baseball" and "Trains." Touch choice!