Superhero/Princess Party

We are smack-dab in the middle of birthday party season for all of Rachel's classmates. This past Saturday we had two parties to attend. The first one was come as your favorite superhero or princess... We gratefully borrowed a Cinderella costume and Rachel went as a beautiful Cinderella. She was having a great time running around and playing until "the real Batman" showed up. The family had hired Batman to come and lead the party... Well, Rachel is terribly afraid of any and all costumed people (Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, any person dressed in any kind of costume she wants nothing to do with). So I let her know about him as soon as I found out he was coming...as soon as he showed up, she shut down. We went through several games (she did try tug of war for a second) with her either hiding on the porch or behind my legs. She did allow him to make her a balloon animal and then towards the end, when he was doing tatoos for all of the kids - she decided he wasn't so bad afterall and then liked him. (She loves tatoos right now!) Here is Rachel before the party.

Running around with her friends.

Attempting to play tug of war. She fell right as they started pulling and that was the end of that for her.

I thought this was hilarious. Notice was Spider Man is doing during the game...He's cool like that...

Rachel and Erin hanging out on the porch during the game of dodgeball (which by the way, isn't a great game for 3-4 year olds...).

How Rachel sat while Batman blew up the balloons.

The only shot of Batman that I got...

She did finally sit on the floor with the others...

And he gave her a balloon bunny - which she loved - until it popped.

Needless to say, there will be no costume characters at our parties anytime soon.