The content creator and her husband, Seth Martin, share two kids together: daughters Amalia, 4, and Aveena, 2
Credit: Courtesy of Nabela Noor
NEED TO KNOW
- Content creator and hosting expert Nabela Noor threw her daughter Amalia a dreamy, fairytale-inspired 4th birthday party
- The mother-daughter duo worked together to make sure the event reflected exactly what Amalia wanted for her celebration, which centered around the custom playhouse newly installed in their family’s backyard
- Noor shared both Amalia and her younger daughter, 2-year-old Aveena, with her husband Seth Martin
Nabela Noor's daughter Amalia only just turned 4 years old, but she's already showing she inherited the party-planning instincts of her mom.
The proud parent, 34, recently threw her eldest child a birthday party that paid homage to many of Amalia's favorite things and her big imagination. It also gave her the perfect opportunity to enjoy her new custom-built playhouse, which Noor tells PEOPLE was recently installed in their family backyard.
Inspired by Amalia's love of fairytales, Noor helped turn the outdoor structure into what they dubbed the "Ever After Cafe." The birthday girl and her guests — including her little sister, Noor's younger daughter Aveena, 2 — pretended to be coffee shop employees.
Credit: Courtesy of Nabela Noor
"Her and her friends sold cookies and treats and lattes," the social media star recalls. Noor tapped her flair for DIY crafts and made sure all of the items had "Ever After Care" branding to give the "romantic and whimsical" vision even more life. But as beautiful as the party appeared, Noor says the real highlight was seeing her kids "christen their new playhouse" and "immerse themselves" in their imaginative play.
Noor may be an expert when it comes to entertaining, but she made sure Amalia was leading the charge throughout the planning process. When the mother-daughter duo had ideas that didn't align, Noor defaulted to what her daughter wanted — she was the birthday girl, after all.
Credit: Courtesy of Nabela Noor
"I would go and show her pictures of things at other parties and stuff, and she was like, 'I liked that. I didn't like that,'" says the designer and author, who shares both of her kids with husband Seth Martin. "It was so fun to kind of really figure out her taste."
Many kids around Amalia's age have specific shows or movies they might want to model their birthday party around, making the planning process straightforward for parents. Noor says she had to do a big more digging since her daughter isn't necessarily a "fanatic" of any one concept or piece of media.
"It's a little bit more of a task for us to kind of create a theme. Because when your kid loves Bluey, you know you're going to do a whole Bluey party. When the kid loves Paw Patrol, you're not going to do a whole Paw Patrol party," the mom of two reflects. "But what happens when your kid's not necessarily wanting a flag of a specific character, like mine?"
"We had to start with descriptions of how we want to feel, rather than, 'What is the party you want?' That's a very vague question to ask a 4-year-old," Noor explains. "I got to ask her how she wanted her guest to feel, how she wanted to feel. What were the colors she wanted to see? What were the things she really wanted to see?"
Ultimately, Amalia's party was exactly what she had dreamt it up to be: vibrant, colorful and floral with her dessert of choice, a cookie cake.
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"It was very her. And one might look at that and be like, 'Well, that's not a typical kid's party, because I don't see the typical things that I might see, like a big character or character plates,'" Noor says. "That is, I think, reducing children to one monolith and one specific way that we want to imagine children's childhoods have to be, and that's not always the case for everybody."
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