Leila's 3rd Birthday Mermaid Party

On Sunday we celebrated Leila's third birthday with a mermaid party at the beach. She originally wanted to go camping for her birthday, but we decided to postpone this to later on the year. She tossed up between a flower party, butterfly party or a mermaid party.

Once again, it was meant to be a small, low-key gathering, but I can't help myself and we ended up with 15 kids! The weather in the lead up to the party was questionable and the forecast was for storms at precisely the time of the party! Eeekk! But the sun shone and the day was beautiful. Here's a few shots from the day:

A spread of starfish fairy bread, fruit cups, seaweed sushi, pizza fish, jelly fish jelly, and in the tupperware container there are crab claws (carrot sticks), sea cucumber sticks, seaweed crackers, pretzels and dip. We also served up some fresh prawns. And of course the cake, a sand castle no less!

The cake was actually quite simple to make: 3 cakes stacked and iced, covered with crushed biscuits mixed with a little brown sugar. A few ice cream cones received the same treatment, and then a chocolate shells were scattered and some green and blue pearl decorations for a bit of colour. The flag was a straw with a glittery cutout flag stuck on the top. A mermaid statue was added to tie in with the theme—this was probably the most time consuming, trying to find a nice looking mermaid that wasn't Disney related!

I kept the decorations simple, as the backdrop of the ocean was the star I think. We just had a table cloth with a fishing net draped over and a few shells and sea-glass pebbles scattered around. 

 Mahlia and some Montessori friends enjoying the jellyfish jelly.

 Daddy coordinated a crab race!

Then the ocean beckoned all but Leila. At this point she got very overwhelmed and clutched to daddy until it was cake time!

 Archer was passed around – I didn't see him the whole party. Such a good bub.

 Mermaids catching waves.

 Birthday girl in her mermaid dress.

All the kids (plus me).

 Singing Happy Birthday!

Dishing out the cake.

 Present time. Leila was no longer being clingy!

The party bags were a hit! A found some buckets on clearance and filled them with mermaid stickers, a bubble wand, a curly straw, a shell, an ocean animal figurine, chocolate coins, an ocean animal notepad and a gel pen, and added a few ribbons to pretty them up!

 Who doesn't love bubbles! The beach was awash with them!

 Leila with her best friend Maeve.

Everyone had a great time, and the weather was perfect! We are blessed to have such a lovely group of friends to share the day with too. I can't believe my baby girl is 3! She is such a feisty and determined girl and I love her to the moon and back and beyond.

13 – 52

A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014.

Mahlia: I've taken to bathing the three kids together, and Mahlia helps me by holding Archer, and Leila 'helps' by pouring water on him. Mahlia loves mothering him and being given the responsibility of looking after him. She's excited about Leila going to school with her next week too.

Leila: My baby girl turned three this week. We celebrated with pancakes at breakfast, followed by present opening. She asked for a school bag and a guitar. She got both, together with some Shirley Hughes books (she loves them!), and some clothes. Daddy took her to kinder gym where she played with her best friend Maeve, then we went out for sushi. Her birthday dinner request was roast chicken, and a strawberry and chocolate cake. My feisty little girl is growing up so fast, and she starts at Montessori on Monday!

Archer: He loves his sisters so much, and always has a smile for them. He keeps an eye out for me at all times though, glancing back to check I'm still there for him. He's found his hands and is sucking and gnawing at them frequently, which comes with lots of dribbles! He loves being in the water and kicks frantically until he splashes himself in the face and gives himself a shock, but gets straight back into it.

Joining in with Jodi at Practising Simplicity. 

Mahlia's 5th Safari Party

A little late, but here we go! 

When I asked Mahlia what theme she'd like for her birthday party, she asked for animals such as elephants, zebras and giraffes. So a safari party it was! After gathering ideas from the net, I think I met Mahlia's brief! She was very happy with it, and at the end of the day, that's all that matters! She wanted it at the same place as last year's Enchanted Fairy and Gnome Party—a perfect spot as it's safe for kids to run off all the sugar!

The invites were a passport design from the Etsy store PaperBuiltShop, and they looked brilliant—everyone loved them! This was Leila's invite to the party, so it's not in the best condition!

As I was due to give birth 3 weeks after her party, I had planned to keep it simple and low-key, but we ended up with quite a few kids, about 20, and their parents. It was afternoon tea, so I didn't need to provide too much food. Here are the photos!

All the kids were given binoculars to go on 'safari' to find some animals!

Food included Hungry Hippo Dip (Spinach Cob dip); Cheese and Pineapple Porcupines; Cupcakes in animal print cases; Jungle fruit cups; Flamingo Fairy Bread; Cheetah chips and more that I can't remember!

There was a little quiz on the animals with chocolate prizes. Then hubby made balloon giraffes for all the kids—a nightmare as they kept popping and he needed to keep making more!

The cake! I kept the decorating simple, with homemade bunting and a figurine.

It was meant to be zebra stripes inside—close enough!

I didn't get a photo of the party bags, but they were animal print bags with a chocolate; an animal texta or crayon; a balloon; some bubbles; and some stickers!

 And finally, the lucky girl with her beautiful gifts!

The week that was ...

Well, this week has been undeniably better than last week, thank goodness. We've all been of better health. By Monday Mahlia was back to her happy self and went to Montessori without a mention of a sore tummy. She did miss her swimming on Sunday but I took Leila—they both love their swimming lessons. We then walked over to the local beachside market to browse the stalls, have lunch and listen to some live music.

After we returned home, I unsuccessfully tried to get Leila to have an afternoon sleep (again... grrrr). The weather was beautifully warming so we decided to go to the beach for a late afternoon swim/paddle board/snorkel. I went snorkelling and it was absolutely stunning—the visibility was good, the sun's rays were cutting through the water to highlight the rainbow of the underwater world. And the fish were aplenty, of all shapes and colours. A truly magical moment.

Hubby then took the girls out on the stand-up paddle board around the boats. This is relatively new experience for Leila, but she loves it as much as her big sister does. Our time on shore was spent recreating a sand giant from one of our books:

Mahlia found one of her Montessori friends just as we were about to leave. Hubby took him out on the paddle board and we enjoyed the last hour of sun.

Tuesday we celebrated my baby's 2nd birthday—read all about it here. She seems to have really grown this past week too.

And Friday we finally made it to the zoo. The girls slept soundly the night before, so awoke full of energy and excitement. Traffic was minimal, as were the crowds at the zoo. The girls had a ball. Desperate to always see more, we managed to cover nearly everything. My personal favourites were the meerkats, big cats, chimps and the young gorillas playing (although the daddy gorilla really did look sad and very bored, which in turn made me very sad too). The girls loved everything, but were particularly excited to see the zebras.

A perfect day for my perfect girls.

And today was Easter Sunday. We had an egg hunt in the garden, and Leila struggled to understand why she couldn't eat all her eggs today. We practiced bike riding and spent some time at Nana and Pa's, before getting take away for dinner.

I hope you've had a lovely Easter! x