So here’s how things panned out behind-the-scenes for Hunter’s 1st Birthday Party..

The invitations were the straightforward part.. since it was just a matter of printing out the digital copy and then sticking it onto red cardboard paper. But, boy, was it laborious! So it was done whilst Chris’ parents and brother was here.. because multiple hands really do make it easier than just one set. It was kinda like our family project :P

My main issue was the invitee list. When I added it all up.. I ended up with a little over 30 kids (!!). That was WAY to massive a number because I’d actually thought a party with 10 kids would be the most manageable and appropriate.. so in the end I had to cut down on a ton and invited only kids that Hunter has regular playdates with.. especially favouring those about his age. I still ended up with 15 kids invited, but figured that was a good compromise :)

 

 

The thing that required the MOST EFFORT was the birthday banner. We wanted a backdrop to take photos against, and I specifically wanted it navy blue painted with silver. So we bought the material at Spotlight and I painted the words on. It took TEN COATS of paint!!! Just so the silver glitter would stand out easily against the background. It was painted over about 4 days, because each coat had to dry before I could paint the next… zzzz…..

Then afterwards came the process of gluing on the wall decals and little stickers that I bought – all spaceship themed of course. At least that part was easy and quick :P

 

The food trays at the party were all labelled with food cards, using spaceship-themed cardboard cutouts. Simple and easy to do, but I thought it brought out the spaceships theme a lil more :)

 

And….. the favour bags. Boy these were fiddly!!!! I guess it’s because I wanted cute ones instead of just standard chuck-stuff-in-and-you’re-done ones. Which, in retrospect, was a bit of a waste of effort as almost all the kids were really young.. so they didn’t appreciate the packaging and the parents opened the bags for them instead :P

I found silver bags with stars on them (perfectly on-theme!) and blue ribbon. I simply folded the top of the bag over, punched holes at the top, and threaded the ribbon through. Attached to the ribbon was a small little silver spaceship charm - which I’d found on eBay and couldn’t resist :P

Then, the folded over flap of the bag was sealed down with a spaceship-themed sticker.. with a little “thank you” message from Hunter.

But OMG.. the wrapping of the bags, threading the ribbon, writing and sticking the stickers etc etc too ages!! I would do it all over again when he’s a few years older and all the kids can appreciate it.. but until then, I will probably do simpler ones ;) Because frankly, only the adults were exclaiming over them and the kids were rather oblivious!

 

You can see the contents above – which was a little noisy-whacker thing (that had “Hunter’s 1st Birthday!” written on it), some snacks, 2 rocket balloons (blow em up and release and they whizz around making a sound), and a little bottle of bubbles.

The bottle of bubbles also took quite a while.. because they came totally plain white. Uhh.. BORING much?! So I got shiny-prism spaceship/stars stickers and stuck them on. I was pretty hell-bent on finding a small bottle of bubbles to pop into the favour bags, cos I know kids LOVE bubbles and it’s perfect for a pool party, no? And happily, the kids enjoyed them. Made the effort worth while!

 

 

The other stuff that was ‘customised’ for the party was the spaceship-themed plates and napkins, and the cupcake stand. All also purchased on eBay :) My original idea was to bake a whole ton of star-shaped cookies, but I couldn’t find star-shaped cookie moulds in time so my cookies were round instead.

Then, the birthday cake. You can see in my previous post that we went with a Pine Garden cake, in triple-chocolate, that I heavily regretted afterwards. But, at least it looked pretty cute! I had it covered in plain chocolate icing.. so that I could put my own birthday candles on it.

The big “1st birthday” candle was purchased from Spotlight, and was placed on the top tier.

The little spaceship-themed candles were placed along the rim of the bottom tier, and are oh soooo cute! They were from eBay too and I nearly died of cuteness when I saw ‘em. Wee lil spaceships, space men, planets, monsters, etc!!! Aieeeee!!!

Originally, I was going to have an edible sign on the top, but I’d ordered it online 2 weeks in advance and it didn’t reach in time :( :( So I ended up with “Happy 1st Birthday Hunter” piped on with white cream instead.

I thought the candles were adorable and I think I like this ‘look’ better than a full spaceship-shaped cake.. because those tend to have pretty dry/boring cake on the inside. Would probably do it again for subsequent birthday parties.. but with a different theme, obviously.

 

 

Singing “Happy Birthday”

Cake cutting!

So there you have it! I guess it doesn’t really seem like that much effort.. but for me it was because I’m not v creative nor am I good with crafting with my own two hands. I’d normally just prefer to pay for it instead :P So I’m proud I decided to make the effort to, since you only get to celebrate your first-born child’s 1st birthday once!

Hunter’s 1st birthday party was planned a little over 1 month in advance.. and frankly, it took more effort than any other party I’ve ever organised. I guess it’s because I’m not the sort to put together really lovely thematic parties, so this was actually my first time and I was quite a newbie to it all. Not to mention, it was obviously my first time planning a kid’s birthday party :P It was held at the ONE°15 Marina Club, which we were very pleased with and were absolutely impressed with their service.

At first, I wanted to go the whole hog and cook/bake everything. But then it wasn’t practical because 1) the venue booking came with catering, and 2) I would do nuts and never sleep trying to cook/bake.

As for the ‘creative’ part of what I did, I was pretty much at a loss. I can appreciate beautiful/cute things, but I simply can’t cough them up myself – I’m just not a creative kinda person! And so I hired Senior Party Consultant from Little Projects In Style.

Nah!!! Just kidding. What actually transpired was me wailing miserably to her about how I didn’t know where the heck to start, and her feeling generous and helping me out by sending me ideas, tips, and general creativity stuff. And… I’m happy to say… I can actually do ‘creative’ stuff under guidance!! But I will reserve another post on the whole behind-the-scenes on what was made, and how it was done..

Anyhow, the theme was Spaceships and the party colours were blue and silver.

We all arrived just before lunch time, to suss out the area and start setting up. We had 200 blue/silver balloons (!??!?!) that the (very wonderful) staff were to fill with helium, but in the end we gave up and settled for maybe 50+ balloons. I wanted to “fill up the entire ceiling” to make it look light the starry night sky, but in the end it was too time-consuming and we realised the balloons would simply float out of the ceiling up on the sky!

We had a quick lunch right there and a bit of a chill-out before all our kiddy guests started arriving….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As guests were arriving, their kids’ eyes were trained towards the pool(s). It was hard to keep them away! In the end, all the kids got in almost immediately after arrival for a splish splashing good time in the sun… as did the parents :) We were very fortunate that the weather was perfect – sunny but not searing, and the wind picked up in the late afternoon which made it lovely and cool after everyone had finished their swim.

They have a main infinity pool for adults, but 3 shallow areas for kids. One is about knee-height with water, with tables and chairs (!!) in it, so you can sit right in the pool and enjoy some food and drinks as well. The other shallow pool was a section of the large one, where deck chairs were in it, and it was about calf-height. And the third shallow pool was about ankle-height with water jets, and lovely and warm since it was so shallow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’d expected all of us to be swimming for about 30 mins… but I checked the time after awhile and realised we’d been in the water for around 2 hours! So ended up having to hustle everyone out because I didn’t want all the food to get cold, and was worried we’d have kiddy meltdowns due to overtired children (fortunately, no meltdowns all day!).

The food was served buffet-style and was specifically catered for the kids.. so it was fairly bland. My favourites were the fries, chicken nuggets and fried rice! Unfortunately the food was ready 2 hours before we ate, so it probably would’ve been better if we’d eaten earlier. Ah well, at least almost all the food was cleared out, and the kids all had a good munch and their bellies filled!

I decided to give everyone a treat and organised for Movenpick ice cream. The brand is special to us because it was the ice cream served complimentary across the island during our Whitsundays holiday when Chris proposed, and we also had the same ice cream when we started our Maldives honeymoon. Nice memories :) I got a tub of Hazelnut, but there was a mixup and they served Maple Walnut instead.. which was too sweet unfortunately. D’oh!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then…. it was cake cutting time. We decided to splurge a little and get a two-tier cake from Pine Garden. Was KICKING myself afterwards because I made the silly decision to pick the triple-chocolate flavour. Why silly? Because Pine Garden is famous for their Lychee Martini, Baileys Choc Crunch, Pulut Hitam etc flavours… and silly me picked the most basic of all flavours! I did it because I thought it’d be most palatable for the kids, but really, it’s not like the kids ate most of the cake. And the triple-chocolate from Pine Garden was, frankly, average. I mean, it was nice and all… but ANY cake shop could have done that for a fraction of the price. Grrrr! I wouldn’t have minded paying the price I did if it was for one of their fantastic/famous flavours or if their triple-choc had been outta-my-mind-amazing (which it wasn’t). So am still quite annoyed with my mistake. Oh well, live and learn..

Everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to Hunter.. and he joined in with the clapping, which was kinda cute :P He was fairly solemn-faced throughout though, because he’d tired himself out with all the epic swimming and let’s be frank – he’s not exactly a social butterfly ;) Still, I was VERY proud he didn’t have any epic meltdowns and/or crying fits throughout. Yay!!

 

 

 

 

 

And so, that was a pretty brief summary of Hunter’s 1st birthday party :) We had a lovely time and he really enjoyed seeing all his little boy and girl pals that he hangs out with. Unfortunately us parents didn’t exactly get much time to chat or socialise.. but I suppose that’s what young kiddy parties are about!

I didn’t get as much time as I’d wanted to talk to everyone for extended periods of time.. which was a bummer.. so I’m REALLY glad it was a pool party, so at least parents could also swim and have some fun with their kids :)

Hard to believe that 1 year ago, Hunter was freshly popped. How much things can change in a year; and unbelievable how much a baby can develop in a year. And we feeling nothing but privileged to be his parents :)

(Some pics stolen from Ruth, Janice, Candice, Patricia, Amelia and my Dad. Thank you guys!)