The Princess Party

If you know our third, you know that she is a girlie-girl through and through. So naturally she wanted a princess party for her 6th birthday. She invited several girls from her class and some of the kids that live in our neighborhood.


The invites. I had someone from Andy's work help me translate these into Chinese. I am sure that she was humored by me.

I wrote each of the girls' names on their crowns in glitter glue. While I am able to write some Chinese characters, glitter gluing in Chinese was definitely taking it to the next level. 

Once all the girls had arrived, we first looked for treasure hidden about our downstairs. The treasures contained jewel rings and jewels for the girls to use on their crowns.

The birthday girl showing off her bling. I mean, her pretty jewel rings. But c'mon, total bling don't you think?

We are getting ready to play pin the crown on the princess. One of the challenges of the party was explaining everything in both English and Chinese. And yes at one point one of the little Chinese girls from Tori's class corrected something that I said. You know, just to keep me humble.

Then we made beautiful jewelry bracelets. Tori with one of her good friends 印琬菁 (pronounced yin wan jing).

A good time was had by all the little princesses.

The cake. Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but this has 4 layers. Since I can only bake 2 at a time in my oven, I was baking for most of afternoon! Tori kept telling everyone that her cake had 4 floors. This would be a moment where she knew what it was called in Chinese and directly  translated it to English. Just what is that girl's native language?

Such joy. But this year, we opted not to have the fire-flower candle. I was concerned that with the towers it might not work. Catching the cake on fire would not have been a good thing.

Such determination! But as she leaned closer to blow out the candles, I got worried and decided to intervene. . .

to hold the flowing hair back from the flame.

Tori posing with our 阿姨 (ayi), our house help. They have such a special relationship. In fact when we were back in the US, someone asked her what she missed from China. Her response: tofu and my ayi.

Can't you just see how much they enjoy each other?

We had asked each of the girls to dress as a princess or in their most beautiful dress. Tori informed us that she wanted to dress as a Chinese princess. I think she makes a beautiful one, don't you?

Happy Birthday, Sweet T!