To complete Anna's birthday celebrations, we held another party for her on the Saturday after her actual birthday. This would see her Daddy's side of the family attend along with her little friends from various social gatherings that my daughter attends!
I feared for my sanity! In previous years, we have held one party with, most importantly, my mother coming to organise the chaos whilst I ran around like a headless chicken. I still envisaged the headless chicken impression but without the essential cooking element going on in the background.
Of course, I had gone mad with the buffet again but had also taken on more responsibility this time, not leaving it all to Mr Marks and Mr Spencer. The problem I had was that M and S are great at providing not just a ham salad sandwich but smoked Wiltshire ham on seeded multi-grain bread with crisp fresh iceburg lettuce and juicy sweet tomatoes with lashings of creamy organic mayonaise but not so great at providing a plain and simple ham sandwich, which is want a 3 year old wants!
So there I was at 11am on the Saturday morning, making hundreds of cheese, jam and ham sandwiches and muttering aloud at how my mother can get pristine sandwiches while mine look like they have been cut with a trowl!
Somehow, James and I managed to decorate the house, blow up 36 balloons, make the buffet, collect the remaining order from the shop, set the tables up, rearrange the lounge furniture and keep Anna from going into excitement meltdown, all before 2pm.
At 2pm, James and I braced ourselves in the kitchen, armed with kettle and camera. At 2.05pm... nothing.
'Are you sure you put 2pm on the invitations?' asked James
'Yes'
'Are you sure you put the 21st November?'
'Yes, I think so... but then again...'
Then the doorbell rang and, lo and behold, there were 26 guest all stood on my doorstep at the same time. They were very good though and formed an orderly and well-behaved queue while I tried to usher everyone in. Meanwhile, all I could hear was Anna's voice getting more and more excited in the living room as she began to open gifts. As expected though, as soon as the first gift was opened, she only wanted to play with that and the other gifts were left looking neglected on the carpet. Of course, Anna had to open the one gift that was attached to the packaging by screws and therefore, I was on the hunt for a screwdriver for the first 10 minutes of the party. I did try in vain to encourage Anna to open another gift while waiting but she had set eyes on the Postman Pat mail centre and nothing was going to budge her. Thankfully, I found the screwdriver and thrust it into some poor unsuspecting person's hand while I said 'hello' to everyone who had managed to get through the door while my daughter demanded a screwdriver!
After the first 10 minutes being utter chaos, things did actually manage to calm down and the first party activity was under way. I had made fairy cakes and bought numerous sweet things to decorate them with such as Smarties (I know, I know but it was party), hundreds and thousands, iced stars, iced flowers, glitter, icing pens and the list goes on. I think it went well as all the children seemed to love decorating the cakes. Well, everyone except Anna who just sat there eating the contents of the decorations before they managed to make it onto the top of any cake!
With the benefit of hindsight, the cake decoration may have been better after the buffet however as, quite rightly, the children wanted to eat the cakes they had just decorated and devoured them whilst I stood there holding the cling film in which to wrap them up to take home. Who was I trying to kid! The Buffet was no longer such a big deal for the kids who had just been filled up on cake but the adults, thankfully, dived in! Meanwhile, the children explored Anna's toys and just looked to have a lot of fun.
It was then time to sing 'Happy Birthday' and cut the cake. Again, a massive thank you to the very talented Grandma Lynn who triumphed, yet again, with am amazing cake. There will be photos to follow w (Keep checking back because I will try to get round to posting a picture) but basically it was a massive pink cake with iced flowers and a giant iced Peppa pig on top with little fairy cakes then placed around the entire base of the cake. Not only did it look amazing but it also tasted completely scrumptious too!!! Thank you Grandma Lynn!
Anna adores every second of the whole cake thing (not least of all eating lots of it) and is what parties are made for according to Anna. Who wouldn't? Anna gets to stand in the middle of the room while everyone stands around her singing to her. In previous years, I have held Anna while everyone sings but Anna wanted to stand on her own 2 feet this year - just so that she could show her dance moves off whilst everyone sang. She then insisted on giving a solo performance, wishing herself a Happy Birthday before everyone kindly applauded at the end. We then blew out the candles. Anna still hasn't got the knack of blowing things out yet but I promise that I did try to move Anna further away from the cake as she 'attempted' to blow out each candle!
We then played Pass the Parcel - The Toddler Version. Basically, I had wrapped up enough gifts so that each layer revealed a gift for each child. Jame had been given several tasks to do during this activity. The first was to delegate the camera and camcorder to 'responsible' people who would take decent shots and footage. Once done, James then had to operate the music. This was no mean feat as he also had to ensure that the music stopped on each and every child in order that they could get a gift and that no child received 2 or even none at all! I'm sure Pass the Parcel wasn't so complicated in my day but thankfully, James (with a little help from Uncle John, who had come all the way from Edinburgh. Thank you!) managed to get every child happy by the end of the game. Phew!
Once some more playing had been undertaken, the 2 and half hours of party mayhem was drawing to a close. I would like to think that the children had a good time and 2 of them burst into tears when it was time to go because they wanted to stay for longer (although I don't try to judge parties on how many people are crying as they go out the door!!!). I certainly know that Anna had an amazing time, judging by the permanent smile on her face throughout the celebrations and the way in which she has talked about nothing else for 2 weeks after. She is also constantly reminding me that 'Mummy, I love my parties', just to make sure that I don't forget for next year!
As for next year... I am certainly starting to see the benefit of hiring soft play centres or, at the very least, outside catering!
I realise that this is going to sound very idealistic and you will probably think 'Yeah Right, who is she trying to kid?' once you read this but I honestly think that Anna's true enjoyment of the parties comes from, not the extremely generous and kind gifts, but the fact that she has her family and friends around her (Oh, and the fact that there is lots of cake). Anna is extremely sociable (When walking to playgroup each morning, she excitedly keeps saying 'I am going to see my friends today. I love my friends'.) and her dream is to have all those that she loves around her. At her parties, it comes true.
Thank you to everyone who was so incredibly kind and generous and gave Anna a gift. Every year, I am completely overwhelmed by the gifts she receives and people's kindness and generosity. This year was no different, I hope that everyone has now received their Thank You cards, lovingly created by Anna. Oh... and for those of you who received cards with red things and black blobs on the front, they are in fact ladybirds. I have now had several family members thanking me for the cards with the bears face/clown/random painted 'things'. The biggest THANK YOU is for making Anna's birthday so special for her by being there to help her celebrate.
(I will try to post photos on her asap, as soon as I can get my hands on James' camera!)
No comments:
Post a Comment