The Princess Festival

Since Ariana's so into princess things these days, I figured this would be a great year to take her to the Princess Festival at Thanksgiving Point.  Every year they put on the festival to teach girls about what really makes a princess - kindness, generosity, serving others, and so forth.  Ari was a little too young to  understand all that, but it was all worth it just to have her dress up and feel like a princess for a day.

We met up with Princess Cambria, who came with Mom and Heather.  She wore a Cinderella dress, just like Ari, so they made a darling little pair.

Our first stop was at the hair and nails tent to get their nails painted.  Painted nails always make a girl feel fancy!  Ari chose a bright coral color.

Showing off their fancy nails. :)

Ari was so careful about not touching them with anything.  She was afraid to hold anything for a long time so they'd stay nice.

We got done with nails just in time for the main mid-day show.  All the princesses gathered for dancing and a singing performance.  I loved watching Ari in the crowd.  She and Cami were so excited!

Love this sweet face.

Doing her favorite princess dance - the "Hokey Pokey."

Resting with Grandma and Lexi.

So cute.  I wonder what she was watching and thinking about in this pic.

Playing ring-around-the-rosie. :)

They had lots of story-telling, but we just listened to the story of Rapunzel.  Here are the girls sitting and listening so carefully in the story cave.

 And they got to pick a craft to do.  Ari wanted to make a crown and Cami made a wand.

Of course, we had to take pictures with the different princesses as we ran into them throughout the day. They loved seeing Rapunzel.

 Tiana

 Sleeping Beauty

 Belle

 Cinderella

Like I said, the best part of the whole thing was just watching Ari and Cam run around in their princess clothes, looking so cute and fancy and giddy to be there.

 We finished off the day with the 12 dancing princesses.

And the girls were able to have some fun in the water before we left.  It was a long, hot day, but so worth it to see these little princesses have so much fun!