princess and the frogWhen my daughter fell for The Princess and the Frog in theaters, I knew we had a lock on a birthday party theme.

And fortunately for this very-non-Martha-Stewart mama, I had until June to plan this froggy fete.

Even more fortunate -- for you anyway -- I'm a bit obsessive about chronicling everything via a photograph, so you get a look-see at how the whole thing went down.

Overall, I found Princess and the Frog offerings on the market to be pretty paltry. She's still left in the shadow of the more popular princesses -- even though we prefer her spunk to the wilting flowers.

A trip to our local party shop for one balloon to hang out by the road produced absolutely NO Tiana goodies. So we did a lot of improvising.

There is no party without a cake, and my friend Cynthia had created a Snow White cake for her daughter with these directions from Howdini. I grabbed my daughter's Princess Tiana doll and my uber-crafty friend Cat and got to work.

princess and the frog cakeI added gummy frogs on the dress to cover up any mistakes, and a little bit of light green sugar around the bodice of the dress (excuse the meltiness -- cake-making night has been plagued by humidity for the past several years of my daughter's parties).

pinataFinding a pinata that was appropriate for the Princess and the Frog was nearly impossible too. The frogs were creepy, the Tianas non-existent. So we went with a traditional princess crown -- but I filled it with plastic frogs (plus jars of Play-Doh, bouncy balls, and seed bracelets).

froggy cupcakesThe last year at a private pre-school meant more cooking -- she still got to celebrate in school. Froggy cupcakes came from Princess Tiana's Cookbook.

The rest of the party was standard fare -- hamburgers, macaroni salad, lots of family, and a few friends (I only allowed two invitees from pre-school this year because of the huge family).

Do your kids have a theme for their party each year?

 

Images by Jeanne Sager

Top image via Ammy.Lou/Flickr