Little Mermaid "Sleepover"

 

As you may know, this past Tuesday Disney finally released The Little Mermaid movie from the vault!  We have had the movie on preorder for most of 2013, so Tuesday was a pretty big day around here for Ainsley and me!  To celebrate, Ainsley invited a few of her school friends over on Friday evening for a mini mock sleepover to watch the movie.  They had such a blast and it was so fun for me to get to know some of these girls that I hear so much about.  Ainsley was giddy with excitement before the girls arrived so here are a few shots of her with the setup.  She gathered up all her mermaids to play with and share with all her buddies.

 

The girls arrived around 5:30 and we had dinner.  You could tell that Bailey was a little overwhelmed with all the extra ladies and not quite sure of his place.  He kept giving George and I really big hugs kind of "marking his territory" and even though Ainsley was sweet and we tried our best to include him, once or twice he got his feelings hurt because he felt left out.  His personality boggles me sometimes because he can be both so tough and so sensitive.  But anyway, here is everyone eating dinner.  (Clockwise Bailey, Gigi, Ainsley, Emerson, Taylor, and Sophia)

All the girls in their jammies and sleeping bags getting ready for the movie to start.  They were all so kind and well-behaved and warmed my heart to see that Ainsley has such loving friends.

 

 

Little man... for most of the night, George was sitting on the floor next to him because parts of the movie were still a little intense for him.

 



 

Right before everyone came over, I got nervous about what I would do with five four-year olds if they didn't actually watch the movie since I didn't plan any other activities.  But thankfully the movie kept them pretty entranced most of the time.  The only breaks they took were for glow-in-the-dark bracelets, popcorn, and for a few mermaid games.  Yay!

They each brought a mermaid doll and Ainsley shared some of hers, so here is one of their movie breaks.  I was surprised to see how many versions of Ariel there are out there - not one of the girls had a duplicate!  They were all so adorable playing.  I loved getting to be a fly on the wall and watch all their interactions and imaginations.

And then it was back to the movie.  :)

Sweet, sweet girl friends and such a fun night for mommy and Ainsley, except for when Ainsley kept yelling at me to stop singing all the songs.  :)  The girls parents came and got them about 8pm which was just in time for our very tired lil mermaid to crawl into bed!