Heidi's Pioneer Party

Having read the entire little house series, some of the Betsy-Tacy books, and thinking about reading Caddie Woodlawn, we determined an old fashioned pioneer party was in order for this years celebration of Heidi's birth. We made invitations from the same Holly Hobbie tracing kit I used for birthday invitations as a child.
We set up our screen tent with plenty of freshly picked wild flowers as decorations. Originally,I had pictured using only what the pioneers would have had access to for our table, but Heidi was insistent that birthdays meant balloon napkins and party hats, NOT bonnets!
She was delighted, however, to wear a pioneer dress.
Even little cousin dressed up for the party!
We started the party by making bread and strawberry jam and shaking cream into butter. As you can imagine, it was a little bit busy during that time frame, thus there are no pictures to document the cute little loaves of bread and jars of jam we made to send home with the guests.
I did manage to snap one before the party, however, of the little muslin dolls I made for the girls to take home (the boys made rafts, but I hadn't prepared very well, so they didn't turn out so well).
Heidi had requested that the girls all sew dresses by hand for the party. Since I wasn't prepared to help each girl make a full sized dress for herself, I suggested the dolls and sewing dresses for them seemed to go over just fine.
Heidi was a bit disappointed by the hair color for her doll. "I'm more strawberry blond Mom." I, however, was thrilled to have found a yarn color in the thrift store which represented something more akin to an actual hair color than the shock red I've had to make do with in the past.
We also slaughtered a chicken.
The insides of which were of great interest to the children.
Then, we snacked on bread, butter, jam, watermelon, and...
chocolate, chocolate, chocolate ice cream cake.

Heidi enjoyed her delightful gifts.

But the crowning event of the party, that which Heidi had anticipated with great longing, was washing clothes.
We brought out an old two basin laundry tub, a scrub board and a clothes line and let the kids enjoy.

It might seem like a bit much, but I'm afraid I overly enjoy planning parties around a theme. I had to work hard at holding myself back from making soap and candles and... well, you get the idea.
And, I love to make wonderful memories with these children that I love.
Happy fifth birthday Heidi!