Baby Z's 1st Birthday Party

Ok so I know that I said I was going to post up some tutorials for the decorations I was making for Baby Z's birthday party but what else can I say other than I suck?? I've been incredibly busy over the past month with catching up on studying, family stuff, being unwell, etc so I haven't really had time to do a whole bunch of tutorial posts. Fortunately all the decorations were very easy and straightforward so I'll simply explain each of the decorations.

For Baby Z's birthday I wasn't planning on a huge party with lots of invited guests etc. We don't really know too many people here in Canberra, other than family, and I definitely don't know anyone with kids Z's age so I decided to simply hold an intimate family luncheon and invite over a few close family members.

 

This is the birthday cake I made using Sweetapolita's pastel swirl method - I probably could have swirled the sides a bit more to achieve a nicer finish, but was running short on time! The top tier I made so it could be lifted off the main cake and used as a smash cake. I used my eggless chocolate cake recipe with pre-made Wilton buttercream - which I DEFINITELY won't be using again!!! It was super sickly sweet, ugh, but definitely easy! I wasn't happy with how the plaques turned out, I was trying out a method that didn't work too well, next time I would probably pipe directly onto the plaques rather than using my edible ink markers.

 

I made this adorable mini cake bunting using double sided scrapbooking paper, string and mini bamboo skewers I found in the local dollar store. I also made the mini pinwheels using double sided scrapbooking paper, and used a sewed on bead to close the centre.

Using double sided scrapbooking paper I made these pinwheels, with silver star shaped pins in the centre. I hot-glued them onto dowels (which means they don't turn like normal pinwheels - but I didn't need them to be functional!) and used these cute glass soda bottles I found at a local dollar store for $1.50 each. I tied a pretty ribbon bow around each bottle.

You can't see his jumpsuit too well in this photo unfortunately, I ordered it online from Cheekee Monkeez. It says Z is for Zavien. A had a matching long sleeve shirt that says A is for Alakai. I'll try to get better photos when they come out of the wash - if the cake washes out lol!!

Stand of half eaten buttermilk scones. I used a flower cutter to cut them out since I couldn't find my round cutters, they looked super cute! They were served with strawberry jam and whipped cream. Yum!!

 I found instructions online for folding napkins into the shapes of button-up t-shirts. The instructions are for cloth napkins but worked perfectly for these paper napkins I bought. I topped each napkin off with one of the tissue paper pom poms I made earlier.

I strung up some of the nicer photos of Baby Z all the way from when I was still pregnant to now. Everyone really liked looking through these photos and I gave each of the grandparents and great-grandparents an envelope with their own copies of the photos to take home.

The smash cake was a definite success! The grandparents were all a little bit horrified at first lol but were definitely amused watching Baby Z's disgust at having dirty hands!! (He doesn't like having dirty hands and kept stopping to try and shake off the icing!)

The menu:
Cucumber and herbed cream cheese tea sandwiches
Red pepper, basil pesto and feta tea sandwiches
Smoked salmon tea sandwiches
Pumpkin and winter vegetable soup with crusty bread
Crispy noodle salad with Asian vinaigrette dressing
Scones with jam and whipped cream
Birthday cake!!

A few of the guests had special dietary requirements so I kept food fairly simple and stuck to vegetarian options. Since there weren't many people and we were all close family I decided not to go overboard with a lot of different options.
I served the soup in individual coffee cup portions, everyone commented on what a good idea it was as it gave you a perfect amount, not enough to fill you up so you can't gorge on scones and sandwiches and cake, but enough to make everything into a substantial lunch.
The sandwiches were gobbled up very quickly, everyone really enjoyed them! The smoked salmon ones were kept very simple, just salmon on bread, no butter or anything else as they were for a couple of the grandparents who have very strict dietary requirements. I'll have to post the recipe for the herbed cream cheese, it was soooo good!!

It was a lovely day spent with close friends and family, and I'm now starting the planning process for A's 4th birthday - only 5 months away!!! Lol!

Kiddy Time/Mummy Moments: Day 1

Okay, so today has had its ups and downs and has been a bit challenging. This morning I started off by sitting down with A at the dining table to do some activities I had prepared for him.

I had found this picture on Pinterest and thought it would be an awesome activity for A. He loves being creative and building things, he'll sit for an hour straight playing with Lego and I really thought these would be a fun thing for him to explore. Well, it didn't quite go to plan.
For starters, the sticky backs of the velcro wasn't quite strong enough so often when he'd pull the two sticks apart the velcro would come off the stick as well. He would try to gather a bunch together in his hand but then they'd just all velcro together and he'd have to pull them all apart so he could use them, but then we'd have the same problem with bits of velcro coming off again.

 

Then he started thinking that the velcro coming off was part of the game and started ripping the velcro off and sticking it on the table, on his face and the floor.
I'd decided to allocate only 10 minutes to the craft sticks so that he wouldn't tire of them and they could be something special I bring out once a day when we sit down together. Well it hadn't even being 5 minutes before I quickly moved onto the next activity since we were both starting to get a bit frustrated.

The next activity went a bit better. I had found these coloured dot stickers at the newsagents and decided to do a colour sorting game with A. He had a coloured piece of paper for each colour sticker and I thought I would start off by handing him a sticker at a time and ask him where it goes. I braced myself and prepared to launch into a futile explanation of "See, this sticker's blue so it goes on the blue paper" with a not-quite 3 year old as I handed him the first blue sticker.
"Where does this one go?" I asked.
To my amazement he looked around at the different sheets of coloured paper I had placed in front of him and promptly placed the sticker on the blue paper.
"Dere!" he announced proudly.
To my increasing shock he proceeded to place 3 more stickers on their correct papers. After the first round I gave him the sheet of stickers and told him to go ahead and finish the sheet.
Once I saw how well the game was going I decided to allocate 5 minutes before we'd move onto something else before someone got bored.
The game lasted approximately 1 minute, 4 more rounds, before A handed me back the sheet of stickers and announced he was going to watch TV. Sigh.

After that I thought I would give him something to do which was a bit less educational and restricted. I'd found this idea on Pinterest too. I gave A a couple of colanders and a bunch of pipe cleaners and showed him how to thread the pipe cleaners through the holes and how to bend the pipe cleaners to make different shapes. I left him to play with them while I went to the bathroom.
I came back to find that he'd taken all of the pipe cleaners out of the colanders and stacked them all back up neatly, ready to be put away.
I was nearly ready to give up at this point and it had only been about 10 minutes. So I thought I would do something that he was bound to be interested in and brought out a small box of Lego. He was quite content to sit there creating for about 10 minutes before I gave him lunch and sat him in front of the TV :(

 

 

This afternoon went much better. A has his nap from roughly 11:30-1:30, he woke up today at about 2, and we straight away got ready to go to the playground just up the road.

I decided to walk around the long way to get there, and halfway there we realised our naughty dog, Ditzy, had decided to escape the yard and join us. We live in a very dog-friendly neighbourhood so we decided not to return her to the house and continued on. It actually turned out really well because when we got to the playground we made multiple games out of chasing Ditzy and having her chase us.

A was able to burn off plenty of energy, we played lots and lots of chasing games with him chasing Ditzy, him chasing me, me chasing him, me holding Z pretending to chase him, lol. He also went up and down the slide plenty of times.

I've decided the design of our local playground totally sucks. It's raised (as most of them are to accommodate the slide), but the way to get up on it is via a very steep (going straight up) ladder which younger kids can't go up on their own, so rather than letting your toddler run around and play by themselves on the playground equipment while you watch you need to be there assisting them every step of the way. I don't mind helping out a bit, but after 15 minutes straight of playing chasies (yes, I'm very very unfit!) I was absolutely exhausted and just wanted to sit and watch as A burnt off more steam. I had to come up with some other games for him to play so I could sit for a few moments and have a rest.

We left after about 45 minutes and walked back home, this time we went the extra extra long way, walking the entire way around our suburb to get home. Then, just as we were going through the gate at home A suddenly realised we'd left the water bottle at the playground! I contemplated just ignoring it and going back the next day to get it but since you can actually see the playground from our gate I finally sighed and decided to get it. We took the direct, 2 minute walk back to the playground lol.

 

By the time we got home and I made A an afternoon snack and a cup of tea for myself it was already 5pm! So we had a more chillaxed evening just watching Lego videos on YouTube before having dinner and starting the bedtime routine.

Well I must say that despite the rough start to the day I feel like I was really productive today. I really enjoyed our time at the playground, I'm definitely going to try and do that at least 3 times a week.
I knew, going into this, that it may take awhile to get into the more structured activities with him, especially since he isn't used to them at all, and I'm going to have to play around with a few things to work out what works and what doesn't. Hopefully by the time Z is ready for these activities I've got a better routine in place!

Kiddy Time/Mummy Moments Challenge

We're currently living with my in-laws, now let me just give a quick run down of how that's turning out: My MIL is the stereotypical perfect housewife and mother. Her house is always completely spotless (no worries about dropping in unexpected here!), she's a fantastic cook and is currently thinking of doing pastry-making courses once she finishes the chefs course she's currently doing, everything in her home has a place and there's decorative pieces everywhere, she sews and quilts, she's an award winning gardener and - get this - she actually enjoys playing with kids! And she's fantastic at it! It's a little like living with Martha Stewart, which as you can probably tell makes me feel like an even crappier mother. Luckily she isn't quick to judge and embraces me as a member of the family despite my - many - flaws.
Now I'm never ever going to be like my MIL. She cleans and sews and bakes and spends time with the kids because she genuinely enjoys doing these things. I usually have gritted teeth while forcing myself to play with my nearly 3 year old son, and surreptitiously check my watch every 5 minutes ("Have I forced myself to spend enough time with him yet??"), my idea of cleaning is bringing the laundry inside and leaving it in a central place where everyone can get their clothes over the next few days until there's only one pair of socks left to put away (central closeting system? ...Without the folding and hanging and general organised-ness??). But being here and seeing what A is missing out on from me is motivating me to change our relationship around to a more positive one.

Hence Kiddy Times/Mummy Moments.
I am determined that for every day over the next week I will do at least two activities every day with A - even if it's only two ten minute activities, it's a starting point.
I will take the kids to the park which is located only one block away at least 3 times a week.
If I find myself going to the shopping centre with the kids I will stop at the kids play area and let A run around for at least 15 minutes while I have a cuppa. It's a great break in the middle of dragging the kids around to all the shops, let's him burn off a bit of energy (which he has plenty of!) and distracts him from the toys I had refused to buy because he has far too many as it is!
I will bake something with A at least 3 times a week.
I will encourage him to be a bit more active in the afternoons, playing games that will help tire him out so that bedtimes go smoother.

I'll let you know how it goes :) Checkout some of my ideas and plans on my Pinterest board, Kiddy Time/Mummy Moments.