Party Like an Egyptian

My Millie girl just turned 7! (Can you believe that?!) And it's a good thing for birthdays or I might never get around to updating my blog!

Shortly after her rock star party last year, Millie became intrigued by ancient Egypt and declared that her next party would revolve around that theme. Years ago, luckily for me, I had clipped and saved a Child Magazine article, "Fit for a Pharaoh" party of the month. It gave me lots of ideas and I came up with a few of my own.

For the invitation we set out to find some papyrus-looking paper and raffia but came away with this golden textured paper and hieroglyphic-adorned ribbon. Then I downloaded a hieroglyphic-inspired font, rolled up the invites like a scroll and voila!

For Millie, the most important aspect of the whole party was decorations! Gold decor is harder to come across than you might imagine, but I did my best.

Guests arrived to a play list including "Walk Like an Egyptian", "King Tut", and the theme songs from Aladdin, and Prince of Egypt. Then we put the girls to work making Egyptian masks.

Next we gave each girl a wooden box that had been spray painted gold (thanks Mark!), and some jewels and glue.

The boxes then became useful as they filled them with buried treasure . . . or ancient artifacts from an archaeological dig in a sandbox.

Before the party I buried rubber snakes and frogs along with jewelry and typed up a list of what they needed to find.

Then they used paint brushes to carefully search for treasures in the sand.

And no Egyptian party would be complete without wrapping a mummy!

After all that activity we took a break for a snack of hummus and cucumbers. They liked the cucumbers but the hummus? . . . Not so much.

Then we opened gifts, Millie got so many nice things!

Then everyone was ready for cake and ice cream! Millie had requested a honey cake, so Mark did his best and made this carrot-honey cake, with cream cheese, butter and honey frosting. As far as healthy-ish cakes go, it was divine!

Then we gave each girl a box of pyramid-shaped Toblerone chocolates and an encrypted hieroglyphic thank-you message to decode at home. All my idea . . . pretty proud of myself. :)

After the party, Millie's primary teachers stopped by with a card and an adorable hand-made headband. And her grandma Barbara came by with a beautiful framed photo of her mother whose name, Maurine, Millie shares as a middle name; and a monogram necklace bearing the letter "M".

After all that partying I was too exhausted to think about dinner so we headed out on the town. Couldn't think of anywhere that serves Egyptian fare, so we went with the next best thing, Indian food!

Millie and I were both so pleased with how everything turned out!

I hope she remembers it for the rest of her life.

Happy Birthday Millie!