Eve is nearly five - how did that happen?

Our youngest one is turning five this week!!

I'm not ready to let go of my sweet little four year old so I bottled her up in a short film so that I can always look back at those freckles and chubby little fingers.  You can also check out her first ever effort at riding without training wheels.

Ollie's Star Wars 7th birthday party

Birthday parties - you all know I love them like crazy.  I've got nothing to hide anymore.

This year I didn't really have anything firmed up theme wise until just before Christmas.  I was contemplating a water play/slip n slide party because lets face it, a party in January is going to be HOT!

But one day out of the blue Ollie asked me if he could have a Star Wars party.  Being a huge Star Wars fan it was like a dream come true so I madly started pinning every Star Wars idea I could find.  Naturally the next day he declared that he no longer wanted a Star Wars party.  Well too bad buddy, once I've committed to a theme there is no backing down!!

Luckily pinterest is ripe with a million suggestions for this theme and I went about adapting and downright copying as many as I could.  I figure why reinvent the wheel?!

The party food table was a LOT of fun with Princess Leia buns, Jabba Jigglers, Tie Fighters, Obi Wan Kebobis, Wookie Cookies, Thermal Detonators and many more.  Honestly I think the grown ups got more of a kick out of it than the kids. 

For party bags I whipped up a certificate signed by Yoda, light sabre glowsticks, stormtrooper badges, and assorted evil sugary treats.  They were also meant to take home their light sabres (see below) but a number of parents politely declined and to be honest I can't blame them.  We've had some pretty epic light sabre battles rage on since then and it does get pretty out of hand.

There was also a cake.  It was ridiculously over the top.  There is no denying that.  It was a giant death star (made of styrofoam to keep it light enough not to squash the rest of the cake), an asteroid belt and a Tatooine sunset with R2-D2, Yoda and a Jawa.  I had a heap of fun making this cake, although it didn't look like it was all going to come together at one point and I didn't really know what it was going to end up looking like.  Thankfully it all worked out in the end, Ol was suitably impressed, kids ate it and I didn't have to rush out to the cheesecake shop for a replacement.

I organised a bunch of activities like pass the death star - the same as pass the parcel but you got to choose a little prize if you were holding the death star when the music stopped - death star cantina tune of course!

We also had Stormtrooper bowling with Stormtrooper masks attached to giant inflatable bowling pins, blaster practice where we used nerf guns to shoot ping pong balls that looked like death stars and a death star piñata.  Death stars were everywhere.  I actually got totally sick of saying death star.

But like all well laid plans, things didn't quite go smoothly.  The other activities were fun but as soon as Nick brought out the giant basket of light sabres that I'd made from pool noodles (about an hour earlier than I'd planned) it was on for young and old.  The kids basically spent the rest of the party absolutely flogging each other with the things.  To be honest it was pretty awesome and I thoroughly enjoyed whacking a few of them myself.

Manlyversary

We live in the most amazing little patch of the world.  Right on Moreton Bay we have gorgeous islands and beaches practically on our doorstep while we can also be in the city in only 30 minutes.  

Although we haven't always lived here.  Despite spending the majority of my life based in Brisbane, I had absolutely no idea that this gorgeous spot existed until five years ago when we were given the amazing opportunity to live in a house in Manly.  Of course we jumped at the chance and despite initially thinking it would only be for a year or two, five years on we are completely hooked on this place and can't ever see ourselves leaving.

To celebrate our five years we hosted what was known as our "Manlyversary"!  A chance to have some of our favourite people from the area around for a good old fashioned shindig.

Near summer weather meant that it had to be an outdoor affair.  I was thinking long table, twinkling lights and old school punch.  With that as a brief, I think we pretty much nailed it.

Princesses, Knights & Dragons fourth birthday party

What other kind of party would our sweet little pea want than a princess party of course!  Well, she asked for a Frozen party first but that was never going to pass muster with me.  I successfully negotiated to extend the theme to Princesses, Knights and Dragons to keep the boys happy and then got to work on another low key, laid back birthday party (ha ha ha!).

This party was the first one we have had with a nice big yard so I crossed my fingers and hoped for good weather.  I wasn't disappointed, with one of those glorious winter days that aren't really that cold and with not a cloud in the sky.

I took full advantage of the yard by setting up a bunch of carnival games to keep the guests entertained - feed the dragon (throwing beanbags through the mouth of a cut out dragon), crown toss (quoits with crowns instead of hoops) and knock em down cans.  I threw in a bit of craft with making crowns and tiaras out of gold pipe cleaners, colouring in, twirling ribbons on sticks and blowing giant bubbles (that popped a little too quickly).  

The kiddos had a blast tearing around working all that sugar off.  After about two hours when they started to melt down a bit we made balloon swords and sent them home with goody bags of homemade play dough, stickers and a few lollies.  

In my usual fashion I ordered a simple sponge cake from Coles went ridiculously over the top with a Princess castle made from about 2kg of icing.  I'm getting to be quite the dab hand at this so I've figured out how to cheat a little and cover cardboard rolls and ice-cream cones to make the turrets.  They say the devil is in the details and it all really came together with the many little flowers, vines and bushes as well as the stone path across the moat.  Eve said she wanted a princess and a dragon on there too but I have to draw the line somewhere so I told her they were inside sleeping.  

Another successful party done and dusted.  As usual I cracked jokes about going to McDonalds for our next birthday party but I know I'm not fooling anyone.  Now time to get the thinking cap on for Ol's 7th birthday party.  

Science is real: Ollie's 6th birthday party

By now you all know that I go a tad bonkers for the kid's birthday parties.  I've given up apologising for this, I can't help it, it makes me happy and my kids happy so we've made our peace with it!

Ol decided he wanted to have a science themed birthday party for his sixth birthday after they had a science morning at school.  Our little guy loves experiments so I was mad keen but I just couldn't justify the pricey packages offered by local science party entertainers.  Never one to shy away from a DIY party I was pretty sure I could just buy a jumbo bottle of hydrogen peroxide and keep the kiddos amazed by myself. 

The cake was a science experiment in itself.  With gravity defying beakers of green and blue slime oozing down onto the cake, a Katherine Sabbath inspired chocolate bark explosion in the background and lots of bubbling goodness, I think I kept it pretty simple...

I applied a liberal dose of green across the party as it is Ol's favourite colour and naturally it is the colour of the grossest of the science experiments, SLIME!

Party bags weren't too over the top with just popping candy and a bubblegum eyeball as well as a balloon and a spinning top.  The best bit was a little book of science experiments I put together so the guests could recreate the fun when they got home.

 I tried to be as organised as I could with the experiments before the party kicked off because I knew that once I had a house of screaming kids it would be hard get it all organised.  Our fizzy balloons (see recipe below) were all set up and put out of harms way before the party started.  I also had liquids measured out in plastic beakers so they were ready to rock with each experiment.  I thought I had it all completely under control but in the madness I forgot to get the yeast for the elephant's toothpaste out of the freezer.  Thankfully the kids were too hyped to notice my quick sprint back into the house.

When it was time for our guests to arrive they found a lab coat, safety goggles and identification tags all laid out waiting for them.  The goggles and the ID might have been designed to make our guests look gorgeous in the photos (and they did!) but the lab coats were a complete necessity.  I couldn't quite believe how incredibly filthy they managed to get.

Once kitted out in their laboratory gear the kiddos hung out on the rug playing "make a molecule", which involved them making sculptures out of styrofoam balls and toothpicks.  My original plan was to use grapes but our practice run with these resulted in some seriously sticky fingers.  When you're having a science experiment party you've got to try and minimise some mess if possible.

 Soon it was time for the real fun - the experiments!

First up was ELEPHANT'S TOOTHPASTE:

- pour 1/2 cup of hydrogen peroxide (6%) into a large plastic bottle
- add 8 drops of food colouring
- add 1 tablespoon of washing up liquid and swish it around
- in a cup combine 3 tablespoons of warm water and 1 tablespoon of yeast
- mix it around for about 30 seconds
- pour the yeast mixture into the bottle and get ready for some foamy fun!

FIZZY BALLOONS

- carefully pour 1/2 cup of vinegar into a small empty water bottle
- use a funnel to half fill a balloon with baking soda/bicarb soda
- stretch the balloon over the neck of the bottle without letting any of the soda into the bottle
- ready? pull the balloon up so that the baking soda falls into the vinegar

SLIME

This was the best. Not only did it feel squishingly amazing, but the kiddos got to make something to take home with them as well.

- fill a small cup with water and add a spoonful of borax and stir
- in another cup add about 2.5 cm of white craft glue
- add 4 tablespoons of water and a few drops of food colouring to the glue and stir
- add 1 tablespoon of the borax mixture to the glue and stir well
- after 30 seconds you should have some seriously goopy slime

and we finished off with our very own VOLCANO!!!!

This was only a few seconds of fun on the day but we got a fair bit of value out of making the paper mache volcano in the days leading up to the party.  Can you say school holiday project??

We tried a few different versions of this experiments with different levels of success.

Basically we made a paper mache volcano around a plastic soft drink bottle.  If you're looking for ease you can just skip the volcano and use the bottle only.

- in the bottle add a few spoonfuls of baking soda, a spoonful of water, a spoonful of dish soap and a couple of drops of red food colouring.
- when you are ready for show time just pour a cup of vinegar into the volcano and watch the eruption.

So much fun was had.  The kids loved having some real hands on silliness. Was it over the top messiness?  Hell yes!!!  I just wish we had a backyard at the time so we could have set off a bunch of diet coke and mentor geysers!!!

Birthday parties: Eve's 2nd birthday

You might be wondering why on earth I am telling you about Eve's 2nd birthday party when she is now 3 and a half.  Well while tidying up the blog the other day I realised that I had never ever shared any photos of this party with you.  How could that possibly be???

So please excuse the tardiness and enjoy the party.

 The theme was Nursery Rhymes and Little Golden Books.  The invite was based on a cover of a little Golden Book featuring many favourite characters from the rhymes.

Naturally I went overboard with the cake.  Humpty Dumpty hung out with the dish and the spoon, some sheep, five little ducks, a baby rocking in a tree top and a spider.  The amount of sugar icing on this was truly amazing.  There was also some cake underneath all of that too.

I can't even remember what I put in the party bags, but they sure looked cute!  I made little badges (boy ones and girl ones) to seal up the handmade bags.  

Some Little Golden Books were sacrificed in the making of this party.  I wasn't really comfortable with this initially but I soon got into the swing of things, turning pages into bunting to decorate the house.

So we could remember how much our sweet little pea had grown in the past 12 months I had a photo from each month mounted on a Little Golden Book cover.  I also put together a slideshow which runs on the TV through our apple TV.

For entertainment we had none other than Tim Jackman, King of the Kids.  If you haven't heard of Tim then you need to check him out.  He is an absolute Rock God in the eyes of my children.  We have been seeing Tim at the State Library since Ol was about 4 months old.  His CD is always on high rotation at our place and is just the perfect combination of nursery rhymes, kazoo and a bit of cheekiness.  The idea of Tim playing at our house was nearly too much for Ol and he spent most of the party by Tim's side.  Groupie

Everyone rocked out, much kazoo was played and sugar highs were enjoyed by all.  Just a standard birthday party around here really.

Sorry it has taken so long, but don't worry - we've got a sixth birthday coming up in just a few weeks.  Time to go and stock up on sugar icing!

Snow White party

Our little miss turned three this weekend.  The theme?  It had to be Snow White for this little princess.

As some of you know, we take parties pretty seriously around here (maximum effort, minimum cash) and this was no exception.  I really wanted to avoid using any licensed party stuffs so as usual there was lots of crafty work to be done.

 For party activities we decorated apple shaped cookies and we had an extremely tough to crack homemade apple piñata.  But the real fun was in the simplest of simple ideas - a good old fashioned table fort.  Chuck a few lanterns on top and a sign and you've got yourself "Grumpy's Mine" - the perfect place to hide out and scarf party food.

We also played "Pass the poison apple" instead of pass the parcel but it was a bit of a dud with our crowd who were either too shy or too cool to faint dramatically if they were the ones left holding the apple when the music stopped.  The game morphed into "duck duck goose" which went down a lot better.

The food was a lot of fun.  We had apple cupcakes, gem jellies, and lots of fresh apples.  Oh, and the cake.  In keeping with tradition I managed to turn a huge quantity of sugar and food colouring into something sure to delight my little party guests.  Thankfully my fellow party mums are good sports about my tendency to go a little over the top in the cake stakes now.  Although one of them did joke that she needs to go into therapy after each of our parties!

Our little girl guests received red hair bands when they arrived and the little guys got white beards.  These looked cute but were super itchy so not too many of them stayed on for long.  The ones that did managed to catch lots of food crumbs!

 As always it was a great party.   Not because the cake was great or the piñata was homemade or the jellies were cut into beautiful square shapes.  The party rocked because our little miss had all of her favourite friends and family around her, lots of fun was had and she got to wear a gorgeous new party dress!!

Cops and Robbers birthday party

When we were kids we had this great book called "Cops and Robbers".  So when Ollie declared a few months ago that he wanted a police party, this was my party inspiration. 

In typical party fashion I went completely over the top with the effort (thankfully not the $$).  But it is always worth it when they see the house decorated and check out the birthday cake. 

The goody bags (made from some calico I had sitting around the house and a bit of permanent pen).

The cake!!! This is always my favourite bit and is probably more for me than the kids.  But I just get such a kick out of seeing Ol and my cake plan come to life.  He really had some creative input this  year and sat down with me and drew it.  He wanted a jail inside the wall too which would have been pretty cool, but you've got to draw the line somewhere.  Thankfully he was so impressed with this creation that the missing jail never came up. 

You can't have a cops party without donuts!!

This guy was our pin the mask on the robber.  In what has become a bit of a tradition the winner may possibly have been able to see through their blindfold.  It is always a girl too.  Us girls are sneaky like that.  Good for her for being clever. 

Even Eve's Rella doll got in on the act with her own robber mask.  

And what cops party would be complete without a suspect fingerprint station?  

The birthday boy (now changed into a Superman costume) with his cake.

It was a great little party.  Everything came together beautifully.  Everyone had fun.  Only limited sugar craziness took place.  Every child won a prize.

Now just have to start working on the theme for his sixth birthday party...