Alfee's Birthday Celebrations

Alfee is turning two and we celebrated his birthday today, about a week earlier. I was worried initially about the sort of programme to organize for his party. He's far too young to really appreciate magicians or structured workshops and indoor gyms aren't my personal favourite. Fortunately, I remembered Kindermusik. Alfee loves music so I thought he would definitely enjoy a session of music and movement from his previous Kindermusik teacher, Shauna from Kindermusik With Love .

Apart of the core party programme, I spent weeks searching online for interesting party favours for the goody bags. As our guest list is rather short, we could afford to get better goodies for the kids. I chose items according to the theme of  'Cars' and 'music', to my best ability. I only managed to find 'Cars' cookies, so the rest of the yummy treats are generic. I managed to find 7 different musical party favours, the pan pipes, the maracas, the xylophone, the tambourine, the flute, the hand bells and the kazoo. Then I added bubble solutions in bottles shaped like guitars.

Initially, I thought of ordering a small cake with little cupcakes surrounding it, all in 'Cars' theme. I bought 14 little 'Cars' cake toppers for each cupcake. However, I think my guests aren't cake fans so I abandoned the idea. Instead, I put the little cake toppers in the goody bags which had 'Cars' prints on them. Also, I bought 'Cars' activity books and stationery sets to complete the goody bags. Just a few nights before, Sophie requested for a pinata for the party. It's too expensive to buy so I did a homemade version instead.

Playing remote controlled cars (Gong Gong's  Presents)

 I'm never too talented with food, so I got Auntie Jessy to help me order pizza and bread while I prepare the drinks. She also bought helium balloons for Sophie and Alfee... Thank you! We also did a little food salad station where the kids made their own fruit salad in an ice-cream cone. The kids also got to decorate their plastic cups with markers and 'Cars' stickers once they arrived. As we are all very health conscious, we prepared lots of water and no ice for the kids. Somehow I didn't take any pictures of my preparation work... maybe I was too busy getting everything ready.

Shauna came on the dot with an assistant to set up the work area for the programme. They brought along two luggage with Kindermusik equipment and instruments. The kids started off with making simple tambourines with paper plates, ribbons, beans and stickers. They were quite accustomed to doing crafts during birthday parties (especially if it is held in our function room) so they settled down quickly. 

Although it seemed pretty simple and unexciting, they were very engrossed. In fact, they were so preoccupied that we could pretty much chit chat among ourselves.  

I'm little sad that I could not be doing the activities with Alfee. My foot was still very tender and I didn't want to aggravate it further. Thus, Alfee was with Rose the entire time. I love to watch the intense expression on Alfee's face. Sophie was already quite independent so she didn't need much help... although she probably wished all the attention was on her.

While waiting for everyone to finish their tambourines, some of us indulged in a little photo taking session. Then it's off to do the finishing touches on their tambourines for the kids.

Somehow like myself, Sophie is never 100% satisfied with her work. She would look at others' work and then try to see if she could do something even better. So there's traces of me in her after all... perfectionist... Yet, the down side is that she can get pretty annoying and depressed over any failures.

Anyway, once the kids finished their tambourines, they were gathered around Shauna for the music and movement session. Although I was hoping that everyone would enjoy the programme, I was surprised how well they responded to Shauna




After a solid hour of fun music and movement, it was time for the moment everyone was waiting for... CAKE CUTTING! Our cake was a 2 kg cream cake from Pine Garden's Cake. Due to licensing issues, they couldn't make us a cake that remotely related to Disney. They couldn't even put the Cars figurines on the cake for us. And since they don't do icing, our design was limited to a generic and scenic sort of thing.

Strangely though, nobody seemed to be very enthusiastic about eating the cake... Everyone loved the Oreo cookies I put on the cake as wheels! They were instantly wiped out! Next to go... the stars and balloons cake toppers! Only then, they ate the tiniest slice of the cake!



For the last part of the party, we had the self made pinata! I basically got Sophie to stick strips of colourful tissue papers onto a paper bag and filled it up with yummy treats and party favours! That got everyone excited although we couldn't really break it with a stick. In fact, the stick broke. In the end, we helped tear it as the kids gave it the final blow!

My philosophy is always to provide the best experience for everyone in our parties. I enjoyed watching my guests smile and have fun. It makes me forget the effort I had to put in for its preparation. We are not braggarts and spendthrifts, we just wanted our guests to be happy... especially since these kids are going to grow up as friends and we are all bonded by our commitment to be great parents!