Aurora`s birthday party

Good morning friends, happy Friday and happy first day of February!

I hope you had a nice week and if not, don`t worry, it is Friday and everything will be better tomorrow!! This week was very busy for us, because our babysitter was not here to help us, so I realized how helpful she is! The house is a mess, I worked from home and tried to have everything clean before starting working, but it did not always happen, so I took little `cleaning breaks` every now and then! Luckily my husband wasn`t traveling this week, so he came home a little earlier than usual and helped especially with the boys while I cooked dinner. I have to say that I am impressed by the twins: they are playing a little by themselves now and they don`t constantly scream `mammaaa` every five minutes: it`s a big achievement! Even though they are the same age, they don`t play much together, first because they always, always, end up in a fight and second because they like different things, so yesterday while Leonardo was `cooking` some dinner for me, Alessandro was playing in my office and with Legos.

Today I was able to get the pictures from my camera, so I wanted to show you a little about Aurora`s birthday party which happened two weeks ago. This year she had many celebrations because her dad was away on the day of her birthday, so we celebrated on that day with some of her favorite food and cake, then we celebrated again when my husband came home four days later (with cupcakes) and then again in the weekend with her friends. My parents were here for all the three celebrations and my dad was jocking saying that instead of 7, Aurora turned 9 by the end of the third party!

This year we didn`t have many girls for the party because it looked like many of them were sick, so we had a total of 10 kids. The theme that Aurora picked this year was mermaids, so we had some balloons in sea blue color, purple and pearl white, we had some mermaid banners and of course a mermaid themed cake! We also got a shell shaped pinata, which I filled with chocolates and lollipops, the kids loved it! I got all the tableware from Target, they had very cute plates and tablecloths.

We decided to have a brunch, so we cooked pancakes, eggs and bacon, then we served some pink cookies that I got the day before at the grocery store, some fruit arranged in the shape of a mermaid tail and of course the beautiful cake that I had made by a very talented mom who lives very close to me and makes cakes and cake pops. The cake was very tasty: Aurora picked chocolate flavor with chocolate filling. The cake pops were the party favors, they were amazing!! I always like to get useful party favor, so the choice is usually between a book or something to eat.

The girls enjoyed coloring and making some crafts that I got from Michael`s, Aurora picked some heart shapes to color with markers, then we had a lady come over to paint the kids faces. We have been hiring this lady for Aurora`s last three birthdays and it is always a hit: she is very talented and quick and it looks like the kids always like to have their faces painted, the website is www.funfaceexpress.com.

After the kids ate, they played a little in the basement and then we had a shell hunt organized: we hid many, many shells and the girls had to run around the house and find them, they had a lot of fun! The two girls who found the most shells got to pick their prize first and then all the other kids got a prize too. I got some highlighters, lip balms, erasers and small toys at the dollar spot at Target, always a hit!