This birthday splash was planned in less than a month, as compared to previous years where I have months ahead to prepare slowly DIY stuffs for the party.
What sets this apart from other parties is that :
1) small party (Because I ordered everything online months before while preparing for mei-mei's Safari party. I had decided to buy extra 12 for the home party. Nothing more than that coz' incase the party didn't materialise - I didn't want so much leftovers). Therefore I had to remind her 10 other children will be invited. My dear girl was happily reciting all her classmates' names when I reminded her that she has a celebration in school so we only need to invite a few from her school and the rests will come from her 'out of school' friends. Turned out all girls were invited. But I did have boys' theme for standby.
2) Really no time to DIY decorations. Good thing I bought some decos (fortunately we had the party at home otherwise those items would have not been utilised) but it also means more $$ wasted.
3) Games - would love to have one more game but pea-sized brain can't think. And as it is, I ran out of things to buy as gifts for the participants and well as the winners. Not easy to find solely Ariel stuffs, as most items are generic Disney Princesses, in Singapore.
4) No catering this time round, which means I can find better-tasting food (I hope). The only setback is that I had to run different places in the morning prior to party.
MENU :
a) Fried rice - prepared by mom
b) Mee Siam - purchased by mom
c) Fishballs - purchased by mom
d) Fruit Salad - prepared by SIL
e) Vegetables - prepared by mom
f) Fried springrolls, fish and chicken nuggets - prepared by KZ
g) Sea Coconut - prepared by me
h) Nonya Kuehs + mini soon kueh - purchased by me from Kim Choo
i) Chocolate fountain - prepared by me and the chocolate didn't flow. I guess I had installed wrongly. Argh!
Mind you, it's not a lot of food but still we ended up with so much extras. And mom predicted that there'll be more takers for fried rice (for my Xmas-eve party last year it was insufficient) so she fried more. In the end, everyone loved the Mee Siam so much that .........
5) Cakes. Simple - for the adults I simply made an order for Pine Garden's Lychee Martini. I wanted to make it up for last year's boo-hoo. Plus that's like the nearest place for me to pick up. I made cupcakes for the children therefore would had some extra buttercream with me to decorate the adults cake + put sugar icings around the cake. That should do the trick, of course had to ask PG to make a plain cake without the lychees on top. End of the party, I realised I had forgotten about the sugar icings. Argh! No wonder I kept thinking something is missing. Now just what am I going to do with those sugary stuffs??
6) No time to do a video montage. No time to do more photo collages or poster. So the walls are lacking in decos.
7) The one thing that I'm happy is I managed to do some molded chocolates from my molds. This time round, there wasn't any embarrassing situation of "oh no! the chocolate melted. I will fridge this first, I'll give it to you later before you leave." @ mei-mei's SSC Princess party. But ...... I'm not artistic so it didn't look as nice as I had expected. No time for bakes, I was hoping I can make use of the Little Mermaid cookie cutters I have (bought for quite some time back but didn't get a chance to use them) and royal-ice them. Nah........I really couldn't find any time.
What sets this apart from other parties is that :
1) small party (Because I ordered everything online months before while preparing for mei-mei's Safari party. I had decided to buy extra 12 for the home party. Nothing more than that coz' incase the party didn't materialise - I didn't want so much leftovers). Therefore I had to remind her 10 other children will be invited. My dear girl was happily reciting all her classmates' names when I reminded her that she has a celebration in school so we only need to invite a few from her school and the rests will come from her 'out of school' friends. Turned out all girls were invited. But I did have boys' theme for standby.
2) Really no time to DIY decorations. Good thing I bought some decos (fortunately we had the party at home otherwise those items would have not been utilised) but it also means more $$ wasted.
3) Games - would love to have one more game but pea-sized brain can't think. And as it is, I ran out of things to buy as gifts for the participants and well as the winners. Not easy to find solely Ariel stuffs, as most items are generic Disney Princesses, in Singapore.
4) No catering this time round, which means I can find better-tasting food (I hope). The only setback is that I had to run different places in the morning prior to party.
MENU :
a) Fried rice - prepared by mom
b) Mee Siam - purchased by mom
c) Fishballs - purchased by mom
d) Fruit Salad - prepared by SIL
e) Vegetables - prepared by mom
f) Fried springrolls, fish and chicken nuggets - prepared by KZ
g) Sea Coconut - prepared by me
h) Nonya Kuehs + mini soon kueh - purchased by me from Kim Choo
i) Chocolate fountain - prepared by me and the chocolate didn't flow. I guess I had installed wrongly. Argh!
Mind you, it's not a lot of food but still we ended up with so much extras. And mom predicted that there'll be more takers for fried rice (for my Xmas-eve party last year it was insufficient) so she fried more. In the end, everyone loved the Mee Siam so much that .........
5) Cakes. Simple - for the adults I simply made an order for Pine Garden's Lychee Martini. I wanted to make it up for last year's boo-hoo. Plus that's like the nearest place for me to pick up. I made cupcakes for the children therefore would had some extra buttercream with me to decorate the adults cake + put sugar icings around the cake. That should do the trick, of course had to ask PG to make a plain cake without the lychees on top. End of the party, I realised I had forgotten about the sugar icings. Argh! No wonder I kept thinking something is missing. Now just what am I going to do with those sugary stuffs??
6) No time to do a video montage. No time to do more photo collages or poster. So the walls are lacking in decos.
7) The one thing that I'm happy is I managed to do some molded chocolates from my molds. This time round, there wasn't any embarrassing situation of "oh no! the chocolate melted. I will fridge this first, I'll give it to you later before you leave." @ mei-mei's SSC Princess party. But ...... I'm not artistic so it didn't look as nice as I had expected. No time for bakes, I was hoping I can make use of the Little Mermaid cookie cutters I have (bought for quite some time back but didn't get a chance to use them) and royal-ice them. Nah........I really couldn't find any time.
THE DAY
The day started with me sleeping at 2am, trying to finish off some last minute work. Che- che followed me while mei-mei stayed at home so that KZ can cope. And I couldn't handle 2 kids fighting all the time with me. BIG MISTAKE!! Usually hubby likes to take my Mr Bean car on weekends for his breakfast at PP. This morning, he decided to take his car. And my fault too, coz' I forgot to tell him the night before that I needed his car. Can you imagine I almost suffocated my che-che, the birthday girl, with all the balloons in the car. Hilarious! It was a journey from home to Kim Choo - PP (to collect balloons) - AMK (to collect cake). Not many places that I had to go but the distance was good enough to kill me and suffocate my girl. Haha!
Argh! My fountain didn't work. Didn't flow. Something's wrong. It didn't occur to me that I had installed it wrongly until I dismantled it in the night (with KZ licking her fingers) Yah! And I'm going to complain, I can't seem to get my big pack of 53% cocoa couvetures. Not even in Robinsons!! I had to get so many small bags. Of course KZ is happy she loves the bittersweet chocolate. Needless to say, she normally gets sore throat after a few days after a party.
Guests came and I gave up on the stupid fountain. It was makan time, I didn't have time to eat before the party so was taking bites here and there (and worry about my weight gain).
Kept reminding che-che to bring her friends to the crafts area but she didn't. The kids came and played in the room, some have been to my house before so they know where the toys are. And..... *sigh*.........I've never seen a room so messy before.
Nails - not for Iggy
Did nails for the kids, not all of them. Some mummies had to help their children; some were taken over by KZ.
Crafts
The children decorated their own door hanger. I bought the scrapbooking embellishments from MWL. I spent in total approx $120++ for the door hangers and embellishments. Initially I had given instructions for the kids to bring their own scissors; letting them paste their door hanger with the paper they like. In the end, I chose to do it myself just incase they can't handle it.
Mummies assisted their children. Ran short of the alphabets so I took out my own supplies. End of the party, there was none left. So I didn't buy enough?
Actually guests this year should count their blessings I didn't have time to DIY. I think through those years of parties, they would have junked their crafts long time ago as it's not worth keeping. Cheapo DIY stuffs are like that one mah!!
Next, the children had to colour their own placemats. Get it laminated and voila - it's an A4 placemat, which I think by squeezing in the cutleries and small bowl should be able to fit?!?
Games
1) Boringlazy me did the usual the Tiara game. It was a tie between che-che and F. I told che-che that I will give the prize to F first and bring her the next day to buy her prize.
2) Music Game : I play The Little Mermaid songs and then pause the music. The last child to sit will be eliminated. I noticed children were looking at me, so had to turn my back and the other mummies were the judges. Then bro suggested to pass the remote control around. M, her classmate, won.
Didn't plan any other games, not as gung-ho as the Dora party 2 years back. Too many games will bore the kids too!
Cake-Cutting
Then it was cake-cutting time. Mei-mei was eyeing on the jelly. A few kids asked for a slice of the cake which we had to say no. I baked one batch of cupcakes, which yields approximately 32 cupcakes. Some extras left, so gave the picks all away to the kids. I over-purchased the picks, I still have one pack of unused picks.
Pinata
Haha! I actually forgot about the pinata.
This pinata was intended for last year's birthday but since FnR provided, I didn't use mine. It was finally put to good use. I bought a Little Mermaid foil balloon and paste the picture over to cover the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Before I loaded the pinata with sweets, I opened the bottom flap; tape it lightly and poke holes to put the strings through it (it's all taped over so the kids always end up with the string in their hands.) I hate the quality of this pinata
The kids took their own sweet time to pick up the goodies. It's either too few kids or I overload the pinata (again). I didn't want kids to be disappointed and I had to remind che-che not to pick up too many sweets. She listened to me. KZ was bad to tell me to put in the Halloween treats inside. Eeeks! I never like to recycle the sweets. I know many parents don't like their children to be overloaded with too much sweets. I choose the sweets carefully and buy more little cute stuffs to put inside the pinata - eg.sprinklers; Little Mermaid confettis; paper clips; Princess stampers; erasers.
Yah.. if you noticed too, I usually like to place some tidbits on our TV console but this year I only place the Fish Crackers. Decided to cut down all these bad temptations before the mummies bar me from getting close to their children.
Goodie bags
Kids simple love this. And my priviledge 12 kids do get slightly better stuffs than her 29 other classmates.
I found these bags on Ebay, got it shipped over from the US and guess what?? I flip over the bag and it's Made in Malaysia???? And I don't even see it here; not even in those shops that do sell their themed goods in Pasar Malam. You say fed-up or not?
The things that went inside the goodie bags. The blow bubbles, memo pad, clipset, balloons were ordered online.
I managed to find these sharpener and erasers set about 1 1/2 weeks before the party at Isetan- PP. Ordered more from them. They costs $1.90 each. x24 = $45.60 *gasp* I don't think anyone is as crazy as me to spend so much on goodie bags
Personalised wrappers which I DIYed. Expected lah! You would have seen these over the years. Only thing is this year I used a slightly bigger chocolate bar.
And the other Ariel sweets which I am so pleased coz' I found it in a Korean supermarket. PP's supermarket didn't have any so I went back to the one in Tampines1. I swear the SA was about to kill me. She wasn't sure how many Ariels are there in each box and she didn't want to open up the boxes for me initially. She checked with her superior, came out black faced and then opened up 5 boxes for me. "Are you sure you'll take them all?" "Of course I will take if you have 12". The thing was, there was no fixed number of characters in each box so it was a tikam tikam situation for me. Thank goodness there were exactly 12 in that 5 boxes *phew*
Party ends
The party came to an end. My time execution was perfect, initially was worried if it'll spill past 5pm coz' the kids didn't do their crafts until 3pm.
Party next year??
Ahh......... it becomes a trend. My girls know mummy say one thing and do the other. I feel awkward not doing it also. But I hope I can get a function room somewhere so I won't mess up my house and have guests sitting on the floor (bad host); get a balloonist or magician. Hassle-free but like I said it takes the thrill off planning and getting your hands and feet involved in this.
Photos :
Argh! My fountain didn't work. Didn't flow. Something's wrong. It didn't occur to me that I had installed it wrongly until I dismantled it in the night (with KZ licking her fingers) Yah! And I'm going to complain, I can't seem to get my big pack of 53% cocoa couvetures. Not even in Robinsons!! I had to get so many small bags. Of course KZ is happy she loves the bittersweet chocolate. Needless to say, she normally gets sore throat after a few days after a party.
Guests came and I gave up on the stupid fountain. It was makan time, I didn't have time to eat before the party so was taking bites here and there (and worry about my weight gain).
Kept reminding che-che to bring her friends to the crafts area but she didn't. The kids came and played in the room, some have been to my house before so they know where the toys are. And..... *sigh*.........I've never seen a room so messy before.
Nails - not for Iggy
Did nails for the kids, not all of them. Some mummies had to help their children; some were taken over by KZ.
Crafts
The children decorated their own door hanger. I bought the scrapbooking embellishments from MWL. I spent in total approx $120++ for the door hangers and embellishments. Initially I had given instructions for the kids to bring their own scissors; letting them paste their door hanger with the paper they like. In the end, I chose to do it myself just incase they can't handle it.
Mummies assisted their children. Ran short of the alphabets so I took out my own supplies. End of the party, there was none left. So I didn't buy enough?
Actually guests this year should count their blessings I didn't have time to DIY. I think through those years of parties, they would have junked their crafts long time ago as it's not worth keeping. Cheapo DIY stuffs are like that one mah!!
Next, the children had to colour their own placemats. Get it laminated and voila - it's an A4 placemat, which I think by squeezing in the cutleries and small bowl should be able to fit?!?
Games
1) Boring
2) Music Game : I play The Little Mermaid songs and then pause the music. The last child to sit will be eliminated. I noticed children were looking at me, so had to turn my back and the other mummies were the judges. Then bro suggested to pass the remote control around. M, her classmate, won.
Didn't plan any other games, not as gung-ho as the Dora party 2 years back. Too many games will bore the kids too!
Cake-Cutting
Then it was cake-cutting time. Mei-mei was eyeing on the jelly. A few kids asked for a slice of the cake which we had to say no. I baked one batch of cupcakes, which yields approximately 32 cupcakes. Some extras left, so gave the picks all away to the kids. I over-purchased the picks, I still have one pack of unused picks.
Pinata
Haha! I actually forgot about the pinata.
This pinata was intended for last year's birthday but since FnR provided, I didn't use mine. It was finally put to good use. I bought a Little Mermaid foil balloon and paste the picture over to cover the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Before I loaded the pinata with sweets, I opened the bottom flap; tape it lightly and poke holes to put the strings through it (it's all taped over so the kids always end up with the string in their hands.) I hate the quality of this pinata
The kids took their own sweet time to pick up the goodies. It's either too few kids or I overload the pinata (again). I didn't want kids to be disappointed and I had to remind che-che not to pick up too many sweets. She listened to me. KZ was bad to tell me to put in the Halloween treats inside. Eeeks! I never like to recycle the sweets. I know many parents don't like their children to be overloaded with too much sweets. I choose the sweets carefully and buy more little cute stuffs to put inside the pinata - eg.sprinklers; Little Mermaid confettis; paper clips; Princess stampers; erasers.
Yah.. if you noticed too, I usually like to place some tidbits on our TV console but this year I only place the Fish Crackers. Decided to cut down all these bad temptations before the mummies bar me from getting close to their children.
Goodie bags
Kids simple love this. And my priviledge 12 kids do get slightly better stuffs than her 29 other classmates.
I found these bags on Ebay, got it shipped over from the US and guess what?? I flip over the bag and it's Made in Malaysia???? And I don't even see it here; not even in those shops that do sell their themed goods in Pasar Malam. You say fed-up or not?
The things that went inside the goodie bags. The blow bubbles, memo pad, clipset, balloons were ordered online.
I managed to find these sharpener and erasers set about 1 1/2 weeks before the party at Isetan- PP. Ordered more from them. They costs $1.90 each. x24 = $45.60 *gasp* I don't think anyone is as crazy as me to spend so much on goodie bags 
Personalised wrappers which I DIYed. Expected lah! You would have seen these over the years. Only thing is this year I used a slightly bigger chocolate bar.And the other Ariel sweets which I am so pleased coz' I found it in a Korean supermarket. PP's supermarket didn't have any so I went back to the one in Tampines1. I swear the SA was about to kill me. She wasn't sure how many Ariels are there in each box and she didn't want to open up the boxes for me initially. She checked with her superior, came out black faced and then opened up 5 boxes for me. "Are you sure you'll take them all?" "Of course I will take if you have 12". The thing was, there was no fixed number of characters in each box so it was a tikam tikam situation for me. Thank goodness there were exactly 12 in that 5 boxes *phew*
Party ends
The party came to an end. My time execution was perfect, initially was worried if it'll spill past 5pm coz' the kids didn't do their crafts until 3pm.
Party next year??
Ahh......... it becomes a trend. My girls know mummy say one thing and do the other. I feel awkward not doing it also. But I hope I can get a function room somewhere so I won't mess up my house and have guests sitting on the floor (bad host); get a balloonist or magician. Hassle-free but like I said it takes the thrill off planning and getting your hands and feet involved in this.
Photos :
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