A rainbow party

A rainbow party with a few friends was how Sophie chose to celebrate her birthday (a week later)!  We spent the few days before hand preparing a 6 layer birthday cake, making rainbow party bags, melting crayons to make rainbow crayons to go in the party bags, making a "pin the pot of gold at the end of  the rainbow" game, and a treasure hunt where they had to find numerous stickers around the garden, each a different colour of the rainbow.

 Of course there was pass the parcel too, and musical statues.

 There has to be jelly, rainbow jelly!

 I love the look on her face here, I think it is fair to say she had a nice time!

 And inside the cake, of course, it was a rainbow!!

My intention to take lots of photos failed, because I was too busy enjoying myself too!

Patriotism, party and community

The wedding of Will and Cate could quite easily have passed us by. But the influence of school had sparked Ethan's interest in it, so we watched the wedding, with Alec and Ethan waving union jack flags on the sofa, whilst Sophie found blowing bubbles far more interesting!

Our lovely neighbours surrounding the green thought it sounded like a good excuse for a party, and they were right!  The organisers pulled off a wonderful afternoon and evening of games, food and wonderful company.  There were egg and spoon races...

...sack races...

 ... of course Sophie wanted to join in too!

 There were also three-legged races, and adult races, all of which were far too embarrassing to post photos!

An improptu cricket match was set up, as were games of hide and seek, tennis, and many more games that us adults were probably unaware of.

 Sophie was adopted by two of the older girls in the close, and so I barely saw her for the rest of the day/evening!  But it did give me opportunity to meet a few people who we didn't know. 

Food was prepared and eaten, from sandwiches, scones and cakes, to chilli and hot dogs!  We sat with the bunting flapping, drinking whatever we fancied, and chatting, whilst the children played, and played, and played, until we all flagged at about 10.30pm!  A fantastic day of community, friendship and fun.

I think the general consensus was that we are all very fortunate to have a lovely space where the children can play safely, where adults can mingle, and how we really ought to do this far more often!!

Party time

Although his birthday was a couple of weeks ago, we had his party yesterday, so that particular friends could make it. Ethan helped to make the party bags from newspaper, and then lovingly filled them with raisins, fairtrade chocolate mini eggs, a dreamcatcher, Tinti bath colour and a pencil made from a twig. I eventually got around to making some bunting, not as hard as I'd had in my mind, so some more might be on the cards!

Some rather excited boys awaiting the guests arrival.

The games got started, there aren't pictures of all of them, but this game went down a storm! If you roll a six you get to put on a hat and scarf, pick up the knife and fork, and attempt to get yourself some chocolate (organic of course!) without using your fingers! Meanwhile, the rest of the children are trying to get a six, and as soon as they do, all hell breaks loose whilst one gives up the hat and scarf and the next tries to get on with the task at hand as quickly as possible!!

Food time!

Another popular game, flour in a bowl, upturned out onto a plate, with a sweet balance on top. Take it in turns to cut away at the flour, but if you make the sweet fall, you have to retrieve it with your mouth!

8 children all popping their own square of bubble wrap! Frantic but fun!

There was also toasting marshmallows over the firebowl, trampolining, pass-the-parcel, pin the tail on the donkey (Ethan's favourite) and Blind Mans Bluff.

We could have continued for hours, they all really enjoyed themselves, and it was lovely doing a proper birthday party, rather than those soft play jobs! Another bonus was, as he could only invite a few true friends rather than the whole class, he didn't have too much in the way of silly gifts!