A Matter of Choice

We celebrated Louka's 7th birthday in our usual way this year with a pool party.  It's an obvious choice for a birthday in Cyprus at the end of August. He was so excited in the lead up to the day,  it always seems to him that his birthdays take a long time to come round,  being that he is only 7 of course, and the fact it's later in the year than Leo's.  This year, as the youngest of the group is now 6 it was much better knowing that they can all swim very well.   Still quite stressful keeping an eye on 6 crazy loud kids (plus a crazy adult!)  with a load of inflatables in the pool but between 5 adults in and out the pool too it was easily doable.  We made water balloons for the first time which was a huge success,   they were surprisingly hard to break too. I'd always thought they broke so easily and took a long time to fill but that was before I'd discovered the packs with the attachment to go on a hose pipe! ...

I love a party when I get a theme I can work with and Leo has given me some great ones over the years,  Harry Potter, Star Wars and my favourite.. Doctor Who.  This year Pokemon was his choice. I'm not a Pokemon expert but we had been playing Pokemon Go for almost a year by the time of the party, on the way to and from school and on adventures out and about.  It's a great way to get two tech obsessed boys (and their Mum!) out and walking about. Because of that, and of course aided by Pinterest I was able to come up with lots of bits to suit the theme and have a very happy birthday boy. The Decorations I didn't go overboard and apart from buying new bits to make the Pokeballs I recycled what I already had, hence the fact we had a blue tablecloth. Ideally I'd have got one red and one white to make a Pokeball table but I do try to draw the line somewhere.   I like to think I'm enthusiastic rather than obsessed! When it comes to crafty homemade deco...

Just before we celebrate Loukas 7th birthday I thought I'd better share some photos from last years.  The themes have never come as easily as they do for Leo's birthdays, I think because Louka generally is not one for being really into something.  Leo's a bit like me in the way that if we like it we LOVE it and everything to do with it,  we will read the book, watch the film and know all there is to know about it.  So when it comes to parties we love the little details.  As Louka approached his 6th birthday however it became clear that a Minecraft party would go down very well.   Louka only had one special request for the party which was a pinata,  whatever else happened was not a concern of his!. As usual I jumped onto Pinterest for inspiration, and roped in Aaron for some crafty bits and Leo who is also our resident Minecraft expert. The Food I love food labels! As well as egg sandwiches - a staple of all our birthday ...

Next week is Leo's 10th birthday and as I started to write my usual birthday letter I have just realised that I broke the habit of a (blog) lifetime last year and didn't write about his party! After so many epic themes (Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Spiderman, Lego, and Thomas the Tank Engine)  it was always going to be tricky to beat,  it was entirely Leo's choice (unlike a couple of the others where I may have gently planted the idea!)  So we had a Marvel party, complete with fancy dress - adults included!  With a 'Hulk Smash' Cake, Thor's Hammer marshmallows among other yummy treats.  As well as the traditional pass the parcel we had a couple of super hero training games 'minute to win it' style.  It was full fancy dress too, well until much of it was abandoned due to the heat! It was a great afternoon /evening for us adults as well as the kids!

You know you're a bit behind on blogging when you post about your October birthday before finishing one about Louka's in August,  but as always it's better late than never! And you know that blogging is much harder these days when you just fill a post with photos! (I uploaded the photos many weeks ago and never got round to actually writing it,  seemed a shame to just delete the draft!) 

My 40th birthday fell on a Wednesday so it made sense to delay my party until the weekend,   which of course was good as I got to have an extended celebration! It was a brilliant evening with a great crowd of people,  and a good number considering so many unable to make it due to work commitments (the problem with any event in the summer season).  The party was at St Thekla,  a restaurant right on the beach and a really good venue for a party - plenty of space,  2 bars and a DJ box - everything you need.  Despite battling with a really painful knee I was on the dancefloor for most of the night, helped no doubt by a few drinks taking my mind of the pain! As you probably know I have a big love of photos so I don't need to explain how awesome I thought this slideshow was that Aaron created, and played on the big screen.  I'll let the photos do tell the rest of the story,  I was amazed and...

I loved preparing for Leo's Doctor Who party , and soon enough it was time for the party itself.  I'd been looking forward to it as much as Leo as it was going to be a small party.just his two best friends plus little brothers and seven adults - that's pretty good odds for a kids party,  it's nice not to be outnumbered by children!  As only my boys knew anything about Doctor Who - I thought I should explain a bit about who the Doctor is and I created a little story to take us through the games I had planned.  I gathered the kids together and sat them down to begin... The Doctor is a Timelord, an alien with 2 hearts from the planet Gallifrey.  He travels through space and time in his blue box - the TARDIS (which is bigger on the inside) and his only weapon is his sonic screwdriver which can save the world in many different ways, except it doesn't work on wood,   oh and he sometimes has a spoon! As a Timelord he can regenerate when he ne...