School holidays, good friends and party preps

I had a conversation with my other half last night that went a bit like this:

Me: "Oh I am so ready for the kids to go to bed tonight."

Him: "How many have you had today?"

Me: " Just our two."

Him: "I was actually talking about bottles of wine."

The seaweed curtain we made yesterday for E's birthday party. I'll give you the instructions for it at a later date.

 Today is the last day of the school holidays here in New Zealand. Much as I love my children and really enjoy having all their friends over to play (seriously, I really do!); there is only so much picking up of toys; picking glitter-soaked glue off the upholstery and breaking up of fights over who gets to hold the very tolerant cat that a person can take. I'm sure you are nodding right now.

E making a fish for the school of fish we are planning on hanging from the ceiling.

If you are new to the parenting game, I highly recommend that you start making friends with other people with similar aged kids as soon as possible and set up an informal swapsies arrangement with them during the holidays so you can get a break from the inevitable bickering that breaks out when the kids spend too much time together. I am lucky enough to have a wonderful group of girlfriends with similar aged kids and our children have been all around the different houses all holidays. One of them took my oldest daughter all day and night when the youngest was sick earlier in the week. You don't have to ask with friends like that. They just know what you need and when you need it. Wonderful. 

The paper plate fish we made using the tutorial here

I am looking forward to the holidays being over and the kids being back in their routines (and me in mine) but I also don't want them to end because my baby is turning 5 and will be starting school. Her party is on Monday so we've been busy getting ready for the big day. The entire kitchen table is covered in fish shapes and glitter today whilst the kids finish off making the school of fish we are planning on hanging from the ceiling.


Maisy decided she was joining in the kids game of zoos.

There's a paper mache fish shaped pinata in the oven (it's been so damp here, it's just not drying so I decided to give it some help today!) and my house generally looks like a complete tip. My parents are arriving this afternoon from Australia and I haven't even thought what I'm going to cook for them for dinner or done the shopping for their favourite foods that I like to get in. I think I am going to dig out the trusty slow cooker, take the kids to the shops and playground and try not to panic! There's definately one thing I don't have to worry about and that's the cake. My amazing Mum has made a mermaid cake for E. Have a look at this!

 Isn't it beautiful and everything a little girl having a mermaid party could wish for? This big girl certianly loves it.

My only concern (that some of you may have picked up on already) is that she made it in Australia and is therefore bringing it over on the plane. Keep your fingers crossed that it arrives in one piece!!

The Alice in Wonderland Party

We had such a hot day for Maddy's Alice in Wonderland birthday party. We had 16 kids in total and I set up the tables under my market gazebo. 

 Having two girls means I can recycle a lot of our party decorations each birthday. The pink plastic plates have now seen 4 birthday partys and the glass bottles have been through two. You might remember the tissue paper flowers that you can just see on the fence from Eloise's Flower fairy party.

 The only new decorations were the white rabbit (didn't Richard do a great job painting it?) which was a paper mache one from Spotlight and the $3/metre cupcake print fabric that I used down the centre of the table. Richard's Mum brought us lots of beautiful posies of flowers from her garden and we filled jam jars and teapots with them for table decorations. I was amazed how many teapots we own. 6 is a little excessive isn't it?!

 I also indulged in these very gorgeous Alice in Wonderland printables from here. They were so beautiful and really added something special to the party.

 The cupcake cases came from Living and Giving. I ended up buying chocolate cupcakes (on special!) from Foodtown as I didn't have enough time to make them.

 The girls all had apple juice to drink and we had cucumber and ham sandwiches, cheerios (cocktail sausages), fruit skewers, cupcakes and chippies (crisps) for afternoon tea.

Maddy looked so sweet dressed as Alice. It was so hot that a lot of the kids ditched parts of their costumes as the day went on.

 The banner came from the same place as the printables above. I really loved it.

 We had lots of fun decorating the garden with Alice themed signs and heart balloons (and the odd white rabbit toy). The kids got really into it and a few of them mentioned the sign and the decorations.

 I loved the look of these paper lanterns hanging from the gazebo. 

The kids went all out with their costumes. I particularly loved the Cheshire Cat. She looked outstanding!

 We hung a big black sheet over the gate and the kids came through it to tea. We told them all it was the rabbit hole and they loved it.

 Eloise insisted on dressing up as Dinah, Alice's cat. She looked so cute (particularly when she changed into her togs half way through the party!)

 Maddy really enjoyed herself.

 The cake was super simple. I covered a board in green icing. I cut a square cake in half and piled the two halves on top of each other to make a tall, long table. I covered it with ready to roll icing and then Maddy helped me add the Alice characters and various icing flowers and hearts. We put some Sylvanian family cakes and cups on the table and then finally made bunting using the printables and two skewers. Definately the quickest cake I've ever made!

Here's a photo of Richard and I in our costumes at the end of the day. Shattered, but still smiling. Richard looked incredible! He got really into his role as the Mad Hatter. I had to tone down my chopping off of heads as a couple of the girls looked very worried when they turned up!

I'd really recommend this theme for a girls party. It was so much fun and you can do as little or as much as you want. Hopefully, Eloise wants an Alice party in a few years too!

It just won't wait

Some of you may remember a post a week ago when I said I was going to try not to get carried away about Eloise's Birthday party? Well, I really didn't try that hard. I got totally carried away and have loved every minute. The party is tomorrow and I've been busy all day getting ready for it. I really need to just sit down and relax now but couldn't wait to show you a sneak preview. First of all, Eloise's birthday cake.

 I am so pleased with it and Eloise loves it too. She said "Oh Mummy, it's just like the one I wanted!" You can't get better praise than that. The wire cake topper and all the butterflies, the plaque and the ribbon came from a really lovely Trade Me seller called Margaret. (Hamish329). She has just started selling on Trade Me and I can't recommend her highly enough. The set I described above only cost me NZ$22 and I can't say enough about how wonderful it is.

I'll definately be going back and back to her. All the bits and pieces (aside from the ribbon and wire) are edible. The green base is a cake board that I covered in green icing. The cake is a Donna Hay rainbow cake. Here's one I made earlier (always wanted to say that! This is the cake I made for Eloise for her real birthday)

The recipe is in the latest Donna Hay children's annual.

I've made some pink chocolate butterfly lollipops. The mold came from another Trade Me seller (Kirinlockie). If you want to colour chocolate, get some food colouring paste as the liquid just ruins the chocolate. The paste is awesome. I had never used it before this week and now I am totally hooked. It's really reasonable considering how far a little bit goes. I got mine from the cake decorating shop on Hurstmere Road in Takapuna (a couple of shops down from Cotton On Kids).

And I finally, here are the cutest little personalised stickers that I bought from another Trade Me seller (charliehorse_nz) And yes I know, I went a little mad with these bits and pieces, but everything else I used for the party came for what I had at home so I think I can justify it! The little stickers are just gorgeous and are a great and totally inexpensive way to add gorgeous little personalised details. Here they are on little lollipops.

I took the plastic wrapper that they came in off them and used glad wrap secured with a little tape. The old wrappers stuck out at the side and just didn't look pretty. And here the stickers are on the little bags of fairy dust I made up for the loot bags.

So cute but I am going to have to remember to warn the Mum's that this glitter fest is in the loot bags before they go home otherwise I am NOT going to be popular. I can just imagine lolly-fuelled kids let loose with fairy dust inside. Hmm. Not the best idea maybe but fairy parties NEED fairy dust.

I am soooo excited about tomorrow. I'll post pics when I've recovered.

The Big Day

I was woken at 5.30am this morning by an extremely excited little girl desperate for her party to begin. Our beautiful Eloise had her 3rd birthday party today. I normally get extremely stressed by my kids' birthday parties because I always try to do too much in too little time but this time I made a plan, stuck to it, kept it simple and small and it was wonderful. Here are some photos:

The Dora cake. I made the cake in a bunt pan. I always use packet cake mix for birthday cakes as it is always moist and lasts about a week. I had to use nearly 4 packets to fill the pan. I then used 4 quantities of butter cream which I divided into 3 bowls and coloured. I used all of the butter cream. I then simply piped rosettes all over the cake and doll's bodice and added shop bought icing flowers. I sprinkled edible glitter and butterflies over the cake and voila, done. Oh and I wrapped Dora's legs and body in the soft plastic bags you get your veggies in to protect the cake and help her to stand upright. This is an age old party cake but it always looks so impressive.

Heart cupcakes:

Place setting (Stephanie of Liberty Lane made the beautiful crowns which were a great take home present that will actually last!)

The finished bunting (Happy Birthday Eloise):

The table. I used gorgeous pink and yellow primroses as a centre piece. I covered the plant pots with yellow crepe paper and tied them with offcuts from the purple felt table runner and pink fabric table cloth (just hemmed pink fabric). The pink and purple balloons are on sticks stuck into the flower pots and are tied with yellow curling ribbon.

Another shot of the party table

Each child had a cupcake with their initial on it at their place.

Here the kids are having their party food:

We played traditional party games. Pass the parcel, Pin the Tail on the Donkey and Musical Bumps. As it was a Dora themed party, we also played a Dora adventure game that came to me at 6am this morning (so it was handy I was woken so early!). We planned to have a normal treasure hunt but I decided to make a Dora style map of the garden and we did a Dora treasure hunt.

The kids had backpacks filled with small balloons, musical instruments and plastic knives (one for each child). We put the slide in the middle of the lawn and that became Slide Mountain. Two wonderful friends sat on the bench by the wendy house and became the Grumpy Trolls. I tied paper streamers to our washing line and that became 'Paper Forest'. Finally, I put my jewellery box filled with bags of lollies in the sandpit and that became the Tiny Desert. The kids followed the map, found the relevant tools from their backpacks to help them over the obstacles and tried to stop another wonderful friend who played Swiper, from swiping their stuff. They had to sing Happy Birthday to the Grumpy Trolls to send them to sleep which was hilarious. The kids loved it, so did we and my girls have spent all afternoon playing it again and again (my poor jewellery box is looking a little worse for wear!). I had so much fun today. Small, simple and sticking to the plan is definately the way to go in future!!