Party weekend!

K’s birthday seemed barely to have passed when it was L’s and then this Saturday was J, followed by A on Monday. Should have been 2 February babies and two March, but somehow we ended up with 1 just in January and 3 in March, or 2 in Jan, 3 March and 1 April if you count Bob and me as well!

Anyhow, the bigger ones have been begging for a party for ages and having been foiled last year by baby about to arrive and impending house move we decided his year would work better. I was not up for multiple parties in quick succession, however, so we took Easter weekend coinciding with J and A as a good start point and did a quadruple celebration then. Having a bit more space, we were able to invite a few friends from further afield (although not as many as we’d have liked really) and make a weekend of it 😀

There were a few intense discussions as to theme: space came a close second and I quite liked the idea of making cakes to scale for the solar system 😆 but in the end Superheroes won out, with the opt-out clause of coming in plain clothes disguise for those who preferred not to dress up 😉

Then we had to decide on cakes – apparently there had to be one each 🙄 and each child wanted something different. So K chose chocolate cake, L white carrot cake, J a plain Victoria sponge (although he ended up with Madeira as it holds together better for decorating) and A had no choice, as there was a Christmas cake we had neither decorated nor eaten at the appropriate time! I decided to take the easy option for decorating and just go for a word on each cake, rather than doing fancy shapes or colours: Cowpow! for K, a Supermoo fan, Meow for L, who was Super Cat Girl, Bam! for A and a last minute decision for J to have his cake decorated as high explosive!

Costumes – another easy option, I’m afraid, using fleece to avoid needing to hem, then stitching on little shields with initials made of felt for emblems 🙂 Looked pretty good though, especially A’s cute little mask – shame she didn’t get round to wearing it for the party!

We made a list of games the children thought would work well or could be adapted to fit superhero training. Top of the list was the chocolate game, which they have wanted to play ever since I first described it to them 😆 We also assembled some suitable craft activities, thinking that those would do to take home instead of a goodie bag full of sugar and tat 😉 I found some scratch art masks which proved to be very effective and also some little wooden peg pals to decorate and add magnetic strips to for sticking secret messages to the fridge. Just enough to keep every one busy in the pauses…

The Rainedrops having arrived early and helped with some “emergency tidying” – I didn’t realise it had a name, but it’s nice to know we’re not the only ones who do it! – we were pretty much set up by the time Monster and Teeny arrived, closely followed by Porticos and SOTP crowd. Hot soup proved to have been a good choice for lunch, given weather (hail, snow, wind…) and we all decided to drive to the hall rather than walking as planned! In fact, I ended up driving Bob plus stuff down there first, so he could collect the key and set up, then returning for children and remaining stuff, which made the beginning of the party a little disjointed, but we seemed to recover okay. Nic ad brought lovely food to add to our supplies, including Superbiscuits 🙂 and there was plenty for everyone, but not so much that we will be eating it for weeks to come! (Even the cake has now gone, apart from a last remaining slice waiting for someone to be rude enough to eat it without sharing 😆 ) TV’s Adrian Goddard made a cameo appearance as a villain, appearing alongside Brian, but was swiftly subdued by a large crowd of children with toilet roll…
We finished the party with a few karate moves, which we practised first before attacking a balloon full of chocolates (bravely held by Chris) which was taking the place of the pinata which we had not managed to get dry in time. Each child had a couple of goes and we were just starting to worry that it was an indestructible super balloon when a Portico kick did the trick and it burst in a very satisfying way, scattering chocolates all over the hall 😀 Then we took more balloons, each containing at least one chocolate, out into the field (sunny by now, thank goodness!) and let the children get on with it while we cleared up the hall.
Came back to a convivial evening, with lots of playing, chatting, eating and so forth 😀 Eventually rounded up remaining children and read them stories before tucking them up into bed, then adults played Blokus and ate cake 🙂 The Babyfoot proved a definite hit (don’t need a pub, as long as we get some beers in 😉 ) but sadly had to be abandoned once children were sleeping in the annexe – there’s always next time, Chris 😉

Sunday morning found the garden thickly blanketed with snow, which certainly helped to get the children up 😆
Barbara would like it on record that they left within one minute of the time they had said
Breakfast, snow, play etc all happened and we all left the house at much the same time: Monster and Teeny going home (and hoping not to be held up by bad weather) while J and J came with us to church. The service was all age and communion and actually very good. The children all helped to tell the Easter story (ours were mostly angels, but J was a very memorable guard, including falling down in a dead faint when he saw the angels) and we decorated a bare cross with flowers to make something beautiful out of something ugly. We shared communion in our seats, which was nice for a change, and stayed for tea/coffee afterwards while the children played in the back room 🙂
By the time we got back and had lunch the snow had all gone so we were able to do a seasonal search 😉 and then Jan and daughter entertained us with a piano accordion and handbells duet (we have a video – just not sure where to put it for viewing) before they all set off home.
Early night – the house seemed rather quiet somehow!