Looking Back At The ‘Birthday Bash’

Looking back at the ‘Birthday Bash’ I am fairly pleased with how events went down, it sure came down in terms of rain! Cumbria suffered with some pretty hefty floods over the weekend and at one point it looked as if the whole birthday party thing may be a rather large flop.

Lady Luck paid us yet another visit and ensured that the sun shined all day long giving the kids the opportunity to run off the buffet food on the bouncy castle, trampoline, swings, slides and other random outdoor toys.

Sadly due to the rain we weren’t able to build E’s new swings and slide, we are still waiting for the ground to become less like a quagmire so that we can put them up.

The Cake

The cake seemed to be a hit with E, she loved her two-tiered Frozen themed birthday cake. Personally I felt that I could have done better with the icing but as I was running to a time limit given that it was my own birthday and we had things to do I’ll let it go…

It was lovely to watch my little lady blowing out her candles surrounded by friends and family. It was E’s first official party really as in the past we have tended to celebrate abroad.

The Buffet

I made a rather large buffet which I soon realised was a little too much for all the guests. We covered the table with a Frozen themed tablecloth and laid out Frozen cups and plates for the guests to use.

It took some time but the food did eventually disappear and as far as I could tell both the adults and the children seemed to eat fairly well.

Party Fun

There were ten children in total, all of which behaved like little stars for the day. J took great pleasure in playing with the lads in his room whilst E and the girls ran amuck downstairs.

We organised two pass-the-parcel games for the kids which seemed to be a hit especially with the younger kids. I tried my hardest to keep up with the ‘whose opened a layer’ thing but eventually lost the plot and randomly stopped the Music which is how it’s meant to be anyway right? As if us parents would ever ‘fix’ a game of pass the parcel…

I somehow managed to switch off my OCD for the afternoon and sat back as the kids ran about screaming and laughing whilst toys took over any visible floor space. I was fairly proud of myself for being so laid back about the whole shindig, it was only afterwards that I worried people may have seen me as rather lazy in comparison to my usual self. Believe me when I tell you that it took every ounce of my willpower to stop myself from tidying around the children as they played.

I filled Frozen themed party bags with pens, pencils, notepads, rubbers, bubbles, sweets and of course cake for the children to take home. I also made sure that I put a bag together for each of my own children so that they too could have something to open at the end of the party and didn’t feel left out.

The kids all seemed to have a whale of a time and I was reminded just how effective, cost-saving and much more personal a simple house party can be. I will probably do the same again next year as it seemed so much easier than organising an over-sized party in a random hall for two hours.

Paul and I really enjoyed having the chance to catch up with our friends and to share E’s special day with those that really matter.

The After Party

Once everyone had left that I began the big clean up, this would usually be something that I would dread but on this occasion I used it as an excuse for a full on deep clean.

Every room was neatly organised, hoovered, polished, vaxed and cleaned top to bottom. Paul and I gave ourselves a full workout with the industrial style deep clean but it felt good to finally collapse that night in a sparkling clean house with two children sound asleep from a full days running around.

I popped into E’s room to have a last snuggle with my two-year old before she turned another year older, there’s something so incredibly heartbreaking about watching your children become another year older. I can’t quite word it but I’m sure if you are a parent then you know just what I mean.

The Big Day

I love the fact that E and I have our birthdays in such close proximity. I am however really glad that I chose to wait a little longer and to give us a two-day gap between our big days. It gives E her very own ‘special day’ and gives me a day’s rest bite before the birthday bender resumes.

Whilst E’s party was on the Sunday, her official birthday was actually on the Monday so we held presents back from the party for her to open along with all the gifts from family and ourselves.

E awoke to a rather large pile of parcels on the Monday morning, she took great pleasure in opening all of her birthday parcels before blowing yet another candle out to mark the big day.

Unfortunately as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, the rain had returned and we were literally cut off in both directions due to extreme flooding. We were therefore unable to take E out for the day as we had originally planned and so stayed in while she enjoyed playing with her new toys and watching her Tinkerbell DVD set.

It was a fairly relaxed day but the kids seemed to enjoy themselves which is all that matters. Following all the fun of the party the previous day, the kids probably needed that time to kick back and relax, I for one sure did!

Thank You!

This leaves me with one final thing to say and that is ‘Thank You’. Thanks to all of those that sent cards and gifts to both E and I for our birthdays, thanks to all those that came to the party and thanks to all my lovely readers for your wonderful comments. It has been a brilliant birthday weekend making many memories which I will treasure forever.