A party fit for a princess

I don't know how I ended up with such a girly daughter.  I am not girly at all.  Yes, I do prefer to wear dresses and have a slight obsession with shoes and purses, but that does not mean I am girly.  I was surrounded by boys growing up.  I played sports.  I didn't play with Barbies or have tea parties.  So how did I end up with a girl who believes she's a princess and loves all things pink?!?  Now I won't deny the fact that I've embraced the princess theme that runs through my life now and maybe even encouraged it as Em's gotten older.  But believe me, I did not plan on this.  Just ask my mom.  Or better yet.  Ask my grandma, who was devastated when I said she couldn't make anything that had princesses or ballerinas on it.  Poor lady.  Now my world revolves around that.

So of course, we had to have a Princess party again for Em's 3rd birthday.  Her 1st birthday was a pink princess theme.  Last year was Little Mermaid.  I expected this year to be a Rapunzel/Tangled party but we have a new favorite princess in this house....Merida from Brave.  Em has fallen hard for this crazy haired wild child (maybe because it sounds just like her!).  So we had a Brave celebration fit for our princess.

The hardest part was finding a cake.  No one has a Brave cake yet. But have no fear...Publix to the rescue.  I found this cake and decided to see how amazing the Publix bakers really are.  I asked if I could have this cake but have the pond a lot smaller (without the old man in the boat).  They told me they could do it and I held my breath until I picked it up.

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What they created was nothing short of perfection.  If you haven't seen it, Brave takes place in Scotland and Merida is the princess.  She's not the typical princess because she likes to shoot her bow and arrows and ride wildly through the forests.  With that in mind (and a few of Em's Brave toys), this was her perfect cake.  I couldn't have asked for a better cake.  Em didn't appreciate having her own toys on the cake but she quickly got over it.

The rest of the day was very low key, just our family was invited.  We opened gifts, where Em was showered with more Brave stuff than I knew existed.  The Hubs's mom made her Rapunzel's wedding dress that put the Hubs into a panic attack when he saw her in it, along with her veil and bouquet.  We spent the rest of the night changing dresses and learning how to shoot her bow and arrow (which by the way, was next to impossible to find.  I'm so glad Toys R Us got a new shipment in, 2 weeks after my dad found it online)

All in all, it was a great way to celebrate our sweet girl's birthday.  Now I have to start preparing myself for the first day of school on Monday.  Where's the Xanax???