Saturday, November 27, 2010

5,4,3,2,1,Blast off

10.30am this morning saw the arrival of 8 of Isaac's kindy friends for his very first friends birthday party. Up until now parties have been mostly family - not that you would really notice, or that he has missed out, once my sisters and I get together there are 9 kids between us - so its pretty much a party on its own anyway! But now he has had a year at kindy we decided to celebrate with family on the day, and then let him invite his choice of kindy friends for a party the week after.

Finally, after much planning, waiting and waking each day to "is it my party day now?", today was the big day.
Isaac decided quite some time ago that it would be a Rocket party.

Firstly there were the invitations - which we could only send out a week ago due to quite a few commitments and dates waiting to be confirmed.


We must have chosen the date well - all of his invited friends, 7 boys and one girl, were able to make it.

I love planning kids parties. I'm never organised enough to have it done in plenty of time though. Thankfully this morning my sister Jodi came early and helped finish off a few last minute things, like wrapping the pass the parcel and finishing off the food. Her little boy Riley is at kindy with Isaac and came to the party. ( Yes I know Vic! (my other sister) she will be reading this and shaking her head, she is far to organised these days and puts me to shame - her favourite line "what have you been doing all week?" I was really busy, I promise!!!)
There are always so many ideas spinning around in my head when planning a party that only a very small proportion of them ever come into being.
I have seen the full on candy bar idea on party type blogs etc and really love it - it always looks awesome. I wanted to set one up BUT a group of 10 five year olds unleashed on unlimited lollies - not really my idea of a great party.
I decided on a very much scaled down version - just two cups of lollies, lolly pops & mini cheesels. I prettied up the table by draping it with a black sheet, adding a framed rocket post card, some themed cookie pops in bright cups and the party bags displayed in a wooden tray with a small balloon arrangement. A little table also held a bottle of rocket fuel (water) and some cups ready for the guests to help themselves.





The party bags contained a small pull back quad bike, ball, 2 x lolly pops, bubbles, 2 x sticker sheets and a rocket cookie pop.



Lucky that I did scale it right back - this little monkey thought it was set up just for her I think. She ate more lollies than I care to acknowledge today!

Then there were the party games.
Isaac announced on the way to an appointment yesterday that he needed to have a pinata at his party! Like I didn't have enough on my plate already! I explained that we didn't have one - his solution "well you can just make one Mummy" With such a limited time frame, I came up with this solution. Balloons with a handful of wrapped lollies inside. The kids had to hit them with a plastic hand fly swat (unused ones!) until the balloons burst and the lollies flew everywhere. Some burst easily, and others took quite a bit of hitting.



The next game was a moon rock race - aka an egg and spoon race using ping pong balls.



Then there was the old party favourite, pass the parcel.


Next it was time for lunch. The party boy was getting the grumps up by this time, hence the empty chair in both these pics. He eventually pulled himself together again and joined us for lunch. Sandwiches, little pies and sausage rolls, pineapple & strawberry, and kabana, cheese & cherry tomato kebabs that were supposed to look like rockets, cocktail franks, fairy bread stars and apple juice.




Of course, no party is complete with out a birthday cake. A rocket of course.

Including fiery sparkler boosters.

I mentioned earlier that there was just one girl invited.
Jana is apparently Isaac's girl friend.
Isaac is apparently Jana's boy friend.
It was cute to see them hanging out together today. She helped him open his presents, and sat by him. She was also smart enough to go play with Jazz once his mood started to deteriorate! It was heart warming listening as we planned party stuff. This cookie is for Jana and I will put pink smarties on it, Jana can have this lolly pop in her party bag because its pink, - so it continued, my little man, so thoughtful and sweet (occasionally!)...just hope Jana likes pink LOL

After the guests had left and the cleaning up was done, he had a lovely time playing totem tennis, building lego, k'nex, and making moon sand creations.

The snorkel and mask even got a practice run in the bath tonight.

Tomorrow I've promised to play the lego game, and watch him try out his magic markers.
He had a wonderful day, got thoroughly spoilt, had a little melt down, and went to bed totally exhausted. I hope I managed to tick all the boxes for a fun and successful birthday party. I think I will sleep soundly tonight as well.

PS the biggest giggle I had all day - as one of his little mates was leaving I gave him a couple of extra lolly pops to tuck in his party bag for his sister - he looked longingly at the rest, sighed and in his most gorgeous and sincere voice said "you are SUCH a lucky duck having all those lolly pops" Such a precious age :)

4 comments:

kathie said...

Thank you so much for inviting us to Isaac's party. Jamie had a fantastic time, and was asleep on the couch by 5pm tonight. That's a first!

Your decorations were amazing. Everything looked wonderful :)

Eloise said...

Oh wow Nic, that looks amaaaazing!! Not that I'm surprised, but still! Impressive!

AJ said...

Looks like the perfect party to me! I love a themed party and like have trouble sticking to just a few ideas!

MY SPACE said...

What a fab party!!! How fun! Isaac has a wonderful and clever mummy!