Danny The Idiot - Balloon show party - review

When I had the idea of booking a balloon modeller for the twins' party, I'm so glad I went to Gemma.  She doesn't do balloons but recommended Danny who I immediately booked after hearing what he offers, a whole show of magic, hilarity, balloons and fun.  Perfect!  His show is an hour but he came early to get changed and set up.  We timed the party around it with guests arriving at 10:30 to get the initial excitement over with before his show started at 11, then afternoon tea at 12 followed by general play and the pinata and cake to be finished by 13:30.  It all worked beautifully on the day, helped I think by having just six kids, definitely the way forward people, I really enjoyed it this year as I was able to be so much more organised for a smaller do.

Anyway, Danny started off with some scarf juggling followed by real juggling and was constantly surprising the kids and making them laugh.

Rainbow birthday pinata fun!

We had one more surprise at the end of the party, the pinata.  I had to buy the rainbow pinata by Sunnylife (one of my favourite brands for rainbow stuff) from Paperchase (another favourite shop for bright colours and rainbows)!  I hung it from our banister on landing above the stairs so it could swing and still be secure and not damage anything.

Twins rainbow afternoon tea birthday party

I organised a rainbow afternoon tea party for the twins' 4th birthday and loved it so much! 

I was especially proud of my rainbow jelly!  I managed to find all the colours except blue in Tesco and ordered Jello from amazon to complete the stripes.  I filled some wine glasses and my Tiki Head glass with the extra layers which added more decoration and colour to the table setting.

Trampoline party at Fun Abounds

I'm ashamed to say this was our first visit to Fun Abounds in Uckfield!  I have always fancied taking the kids but their special toddler sessions always landed on the wrong day/time for us and so we just never went.  Luckily we were invited along there for a birthday party recently and had an awesome time celebrating the twins' friend and having lots of bouncy fun!

Party planning for the twin's 4th birthday - Rainbow Tea Party with balloons!

We had planned to take the twins away for their birthday this year, we were thinking Disneyland Paris and thought we'd go early to see it all done up for Halloween!  We were just going to have a small party on their birthday when we came back.  We've never been before but I can't wait to take the twins.  My only visit to Disney was as a 14 year old in Florida which was amazing so I can't wait to take K&P!  We booked that week off but after the stress and then relief of Nik's exams which are now finally over, Nik suggested we ask his parents to babysit for a few days and we just go away on our own this time (not to Disney, we'll wait for the kids to come to that one).  We're just going for 4 nights as I have my first exhibition at the end of that week to prepare for which is exciting too!

So, the twins's 4th birthday party plans...

We've decided this year we wanted needed to organise a much smaller do than last year.  I was exhausted after all the Halloween efforts for their 3rd birthday and this year has been intense already with various hurdles and knackering month after month so we're having a small tea party at home.  I decided the best way to invite guests would be to ask the twins who they want to come.  It's their perfect guest list as they obviously just listed all the friends they see often and consider their best friends so we are inviting 6 friends who will hopefully be able to make it, perfect to fit round the table without too much chaos as we already have 8 chairs.

Even though it will be small, I'm still excited to plan it and will of course be having a rainbow theme!  Rainbow fits so well for twins who are like chalk and cheese with very different favourite things, they do both love bright colours and it's gender neutral which makes me happy anyway.  They do both love balloons too so for this year's entertainment we have hired a balloon twister who does a whole show with balloon magic tricks and models and makes it all fun so I'm pretty sure they will LOVE that!

I've already got paper plates and matching napkins, etc. from Sainsbury's with a gorgeous rainbow balloon design which is perfect!  I also have the bunting and wrapping paper (I even framed a gift bag I love it so much)!

I can't remember if I already bought the above invitations but these ones below were on sale in Paperchase so I got a pack of six, I love the pop-up design.

As for food ideas, again, plenty of inspiration on Pinterest and I'm aiming for simple but tasty and pretty!  I love the healthier ideas of veggie pizzas and coloured popcorn but of course some sweet treats too like rainbow cupcakes and jelly but I'll use a mould and do one big one rather than use more disposable plastic.

I will definitely be doing rainbow fruits again too like I did for their Naming Ceremony in 2015 although probably not a full on rainbow cake again - I prefer to aim for taste and that cake wasn't the best to eat despite looking awesome!

Capture from Anna's lovely video of the Naming Day.

And for a bit more fun, I've bought a rainbow pinata and I like the idea of a homemade DIY to give as party favours like this dyed pasta jewellery making idea or a rainbow wand maybe.  I also bought these pretty crackers from Paperchase which come with stickers inside which I know the kids will love, why should crackers just be for Christmas?  ;)

I can't wait, I think they're going to love it!

Halloween Party Food Ideas

The food for the twins' party last year was so fun!  I got loads of ideas from Pinterest and some were easier than others!  The banana ghosts were the easiest, just chop them in half, draw some spooky faces on and stand them up on a plate.  Job done.  Same with the hard boiled eggs - boil them, draw on faces and they're ready to serve. 

The witches broomsticks were tricky - Nik made these out of cheese strings (NOT my first choice of cheese but this was style over substance clearly), shredded to make the broom ends and straight pretzels inserted in, tied with a chive.  The pretzels were hard to find, good old M&S came up trumps there and the cheese kept splitting where he pushed them in but he did such a great job!  I made the witches fingers out of cocktail sausages with flaked almonds stuck on with tomato chutney to make bloody fingernails.  The vomiting watermelon was easy, just chop off the top, scoop out the melon and turn it upside down, carve a mouth and place the watermelon bits and other fruits coming out of the mouth on a big plate.

I've already written about the epic saga of the cakes - they looked pretty awesome though and took me ages so I'm sharing them again!

The overall Banquet of the Dead looked fab on the spooky tablecloths over two long tables with my big black candelabra and Halloween bunting and various skulls and Halloween crockery to set it all off.

Nik's Mum made the eyeballs for us, simply Babybel cheeses with black sliced olives for the centre and red food colouring painted on for the bloodshot effect.

I had cheese balls in a big bowl with a scary ladle, Twiglets in a skull goblet and I cut pumpkin shapes out of raw carrot which was really easy too, just cut the shape out of one side before you slice them.  I ran out of time to carve the big pumpkins though!

Oh and we also had a "poison" bar for the kids and grown ups.  Coloured orange juice for kids and green dyed gin or blue vodka for the adults!  The red one is some Christmas liqueur I made long ago!

I just love coming up with spooky ideas for Halloween!  Tell me if you have any great ideas to share, I'd love to see photos if you try any of these too!

Halloween Party Ideas

For the twins' 3rd birthday I wanted to have a Halloween party for them.  I'm a big fan of Halloween and love all of the decorations, games, fancy dress and food ideas so I did loads of research in advance, mainly on Pinterest, and came up with a few favourites I wanted to do.  I hired a local village hall in Maresfield to keep the inevitable mess out of my home and had a great time making and baking for the big day.

Brighton Pride Parade!

I still have loads more photos to go through from the parade, it felt never ending in the blazing heat but was so much fun, I was so impressed with all of the energy from the participants!  The colours and people and general atmosphere were all amazing and I will definitely be back next year!  I'll update this post with more photos soon but for now, I have 101 jobs and I'm knackered so I'm off to bed ready to carry on in the morning!  ;)

Cocktail Recipes

We enjoyed quite a few home-made cocktails over the Christmas, birthday and New Year period.  Here are some of the recipes for what you may have seen us enjoying on my social media, they're all very simple short drinks and super quick to make.  Apologies for the poor photos, I was too busy enjoying the day to bother with the big camera so these are all phone snaps ;)

A good old gin martini

Off The Wall Entertainment - Christmas disco review

We were thrilled when Gemma from Off The Wall Entertainment invited the twins to come along to her Christmas disco on Christmas Eve eve!

Mums The Word #WildChild Halloween Party - event review

This has taken me longer to write than I hoped but it's the busiest time of year for me with the twins birthday right before the lead up to Christmas, plus my day job has been extra busy and a bit stressful lately plus I'm working on getting bexphoto up and running properly so I'm wearing pretty thin at the moment!  I've also got my first radio chat with Jacqui at Uckfield FM this morning at 11:30!  You can listen in live on the website if you're not local, just follow the Uckfield FM link and click on LISTEN LIVE at the top of the page.  (There's a webcam too so I better get myself organised so I don't look a mess!)

Anyway, as well as being my most busy time of year, October onwards is also one of my favourite times!  I love Autumn, the light and the colours but especially Halloween!  As well as the twins' birthday party being a little early this year with a Halloween theme, we also attended a massive Halloween toddler/baby rave party near Tunbridge Wells at Salomon's Estate.  Run by Mums The Word Events, #Wild_Child parties are events designed just for little ones and their parents.  I first came across them at Joy Festival back in May where they held one in the woods with bubbles, dancing, crafts galore and generally a lot of colour and fun.  I was there without the twins but thought they'd love it so I was thrilled to be invited along to photograph and enjoy their Halloween event with the whole family after meeting the lovely sisters behind Mums the Word at a Mamas Meetup in Brighton (another one I've yet to write about as well as their Mamas Supper Club quiz which was a great laugh).

Blackberry Farm birthday party

The twins were invited along to a birthday party at Blackberry Farm last weekend and had a great time (in between tantrums and clinging to me that is)!  It wasn't our party so I'm not going to "review" it but I will say it was awesome and the twins and all the other kids had so much fun!  I have permission from the Mum to share a few photos with you of her little boy's awesome day out with his friends.

We started off meeting by the cafe before all heading through to the petting area with rabbits and guinea pigs.  Most of the little ones were great, sitting down patiently waiting for their turn to hold or stroke the animals.  The twins were in a bit of a funny mood (possibly related to my stress dealing with a poorly timed tantrum as we left the house - all Priya's fault declaring that it was HER birthday and no one else could have any cake, setting Kalyan off crying and complaining to me that Priya said he couldn't have cake, me telling her it was Eliot's birthday and his cake to share triggering her meltdown - the joys!) so they didn't want to touch the animals and were pretty clingy with me so I didn't get many photos here as Daddy was at work so my camera was swiftly tucked away again.

#wild_child Baby Rave near Tunbridge Wells

We went along to our first ever "Baby Rave" type event run by Mum's The Word today at Salomon's Estate near Tunbridge Wells and had an absolute blast!  Full review to follow but here are a few favourite pics from today :)

Twins' 3rd birthday Halloween party plans!

The twins are nearly three!  I know, how did this happen already?!  The last year has gone even faster than ever before and I'm back in full on party planning mode.  As I'm busier than ever these days with work, the blog and bexphoto (I've had to call in help on Baking Club and Book Club as I just can't cope!), I have decided to combine their birthday party and Halloween as I just can't manage two parties this year and yet don't want to miss out on a Halloween one, you know how much I love Halloween!

So, not only are we having a fancy dress Halloween party for their birthday, but we're also having it a couple of weeks early as that also coincides with when my Mum is in the country (to visit my brand new nephew who I'm heading up to meet after the party weekend).  I'm still leaving things a bit late as all I've managed to do so far is pin some ideas and book the awesome face painter we met at Wakehurst's Science Festival.  I've provisionally booked a hall (as I don't want 20+ toddlers smearing painted faces on my sofa/carpets/anything else) and have some ideas for activities and food but I really must get organised!