Valentine's Day Memory Making

Sometimes having a child with special needs means going out of the way to facilitate friendships. Margot has many special friends at church, school and in the community. She loves being with and getting together with them. But sometimes she has trouble fully participating with her peers. I see her standing apart or playing alone when she could be joining in. With time I've learned to remain calm and take a deep breath.  She just needs a little facilitated play time with organized, adult-lead activities for her and her little friends so she can fully participate. When we need some of this quality special time with friends, that means...party time!

Little Miss loves her a good party.

This year we reinvented our almost-annual Valentines' Day party as a "Dollie & Me Partea." The guests were each invited to bring their favorite doll along. 

Margot had so much fun painting valentine Invitations for each guest and helping prep decorations and party activities.

Her love of organizing things and helping made her the perfect Party-Planner Girl! We had tons of fun making tiny food and drinks, matching girl/doll napkins and tiny table settings.

Of course we had to have a doll table to hold all the tiny doll goodies. I collected all the tiny chairs I could find around the house (yes, we have a couple...So?) and I may have also used this as an excuse to scour thrift stores. I was surprised how easy it is to find tiny chairs at thrift stores. Now I have to find something to do with them. Hmmm... future blog post on up-cycled doll chairs?

The party was a blast and the seven little girls were all dressed up and excited. The dolls were all gussied up in their finest as well.

We played games, exchange valentines, did crafts and ate too many cupcakes.

Everyone went home with an up-cycled t-shirt bag that could be used to carry their doll in. Of coarse the dolls needed bags too so those were made out of up-cylced onesies.

Little goodies inside included matching doll and girl notebooks. Found these great customizable notebook covers on Inchmark.

All in all, it was well worth all the effort. Little Miss loved playing hostess and made lots of good memories with her friends. The social interactions and warm fuzzy feelings will keep us going through the rest of these cold winter days.