Pony Gal is 8!

We celebrated with a fun bash on Sunday.
She requested a horse and barbie party. I conveniently edited out the Barbie party in all my planning, ahem. :) The horse part was fun, though, and it ended up being one of her most fun parties yet.
The afternoon started by eating lunch together-a nice down-home style meal of roasted chicken, cornbread, potato salad, baked beans, corn and bean salsa with chips, and veggies with dip.
The kids played for a bit, then we moved onto gifts.

 

Pony Gal  is holding up a skirt I made her here.

 

Lovely G decided to help herself to the part favors :) I tied some glow sticks, stickers, a paintable wooden snake, and pencil in a bandana for each of our young guests.

 

Miss T and her mama

 

My pictures got out of order and I am too lazy to fix them. There are more gifts coming. Anyway, Pony Gal and her cake, topped with 8 candles plus a number 8 candle for good measure.

 

This is the table, simply dressed for the Western theme in some bandana print fabric and an old cowboy hat.

 

We brought out Pony Gal's homemade gift from last year-the saddle stand and saddle-for the kids to play with, as well as to use as a decoration that fit the theme.

 

These old enamel pan and milk bucket held the utensils, plates, cups, and napkins, and were decorated with bandanas.

 

The cake. I stressed over what I wanted to do. Finally, I found a picture of a Bullseye cake on Pinterest and used it to guide me in making a horse cake. I knew I didn't want to mess with fondant, so this is all frosting, as you can see by the rough nature of it. I made a round cake and a rectangle cake and cut the horse from them. The round is the body, with pieces of rectangle making up everything else. It was a chocolate zucchini cake, one of PG's favorites, topped with chocolate frosting in the dark brown areas, Southern Caramel icing in the tan areas (which is soooogoodddd), and a little cream cheese frosting on the eyes. The black and other white I cheated and used tubed decorator's icing. She loved it, though! That is a full sheet pan for scale.

 

Our good friend, Jamey with Lovely G.

 

Boots! Pony Gal needed them, especially helpful in her riding lessons.

 

She asks for a porcelain doll every time she sees one when we are out and about, so she was thrilled when her great Grandma Penny gave her one.

 

Studio Ghibli movie, FTW!

 

Miss M thought long and hard about what to give her friend. I know Pony Gal loves it, and is carrying it everywhere.

 

Superboy and great Grandma Penny. Those two mesh so well together. She brought him a little something, too.

 

Pokemon is always a big hit around here. PG got pokeballs from both Superboy and our friends, the Kings.

  

Thelma Lou. We thought it would be perfect to have Grandma Gail bring Thelma out and give some rides since it was a horse party. The kids were all super excited.

  

 

Who are you lookin' at?

 

So, this shot seems to be a jumbled mess, but it catches a rather humorous moment. Mac wanted to get closer to Bolt. She didn't seem to think it an issue to just sit on T to do so. Luckily, T's dad is there to rearrange a bit.

 

I love baby/daddy time.

 

Lovely G claps whenever she is enjoying herself with something.

 

There is just something so sweet about this shot of O riding off into the sunset...

 

And, Grandma is smiling pretty in this one :)

 

There he gOOOOOes!

 

Mik looked so natural on Thelma. 

 

And even G got to ride :)

 

Pinata! I was going to make one, but ended up having to prioritize. This one was funny though, as I had stuffed it as full as I could, but didn't want leftover candy, so he had suckers coming out of his rear. The kids thought it was hilarious.

 

See? Now, back to the action.

 

The younger kids just wouldn't wait for the pinata to break completely, and rather were running in and grabbing candy as little bits would come out here and there, which was rather unsafe, so we brought in the big gun and let her finish the bull off so they could get what they were pining after so badly.