This afternoon was the main event in what proved to be a week of birthday celebrations for Lydia. Because her birthday was in the middle of the week, we had the extended family party last Sunday, the immediate family party on Wednesday, and the kid party today. In addition to those three celebrations, she got a big package from my mom in the States on Monday afternoon. It goes without saying that she had a very good week.

This year we had the first of what will probably be many “theme” parties. Initially she’d had her heart set on a Kim Possible theme, but when she saw the Hello Kitty party package online she fell in love and, much to my delight, decided only Hello Kitty would do.

She invited twelve friends but only eight were able to make it, which suited me just fine. Nine little girls in one confined space are more than enough for any one person to contend with for two hours solid.

After all the guests had arrived the first order of business was opening the presents. You can see that she carefully weighed her options before deciding which to open first.

That task completed, it was on to the cake. I learned from last year and didn’t repeat the mistake of making a delicious yellow cake from scratch and frosting it with heavenly buttercream frosting–such does not appeal to Swedes. This year I bought a ready-made layer cake (you know, the kind that has a shelf-life of several months), spread store-bought vanilla sauce (kind of like pudding) on the bottom layer and raspberry jam on the next layer, then covered the whole thing in whipped cream. You know what? They loved it. Most of them took seconds and we didn’t have even one piece left over. Figures. At least it was cute.

After they’d had their fill of cake, the girls went on a treasure hunt and unearthed a Hello Kitty piñata, appropriately hidden away in an old wooden chest. There weren’t any ceiling hooks available to hang it from, so Olof obliged us by standing on a chair and holding it up (never fear, it was the kind where you pull a “magic” ribbon to release the goodies, rather than beating it with a stick). As you might expect, quite a frenzy ensued when the candy and stickers came raining down.

Poor little Sandra, off to the left, couldn’t open her plastic bag and missed out on most of the candy, but that situation was quickly rectified and she recovered nicely, as you can see:

Thank goodness I have a year to rest up before I have to do this again (do not even think of reminding me about Halloween right now!).