I don't have grand plans of a major party to celebrate Jake's birthday, but the basic is that we do a mini celebration at school, and bring him out for the day. Because we are doing this mini school celebration, I have basic preparations I need to do.
The first thing I did was to bring him to a cake shop to pick his cake design. He's been talking about different themes he fancied for weeks, so I figured it's best he places the order himself as he's so fickle! When we eventually got to the shop, I let him make the final decisions - after much discussions (he wanted many many). His final choices - a superhero cake for his school party, and a car cake for his family party.
Based on that choice, I planned to make a super simple goodie pack for his friends. First, I purchased the items that would go into the party pack - I picked everything that the boy will fancy.
1. A mini snakes and ladders game
2. A mini parachute man
3. A mini sticky "spiderman"
4. Candy x 1 type
5. Chocolates x 2 types
6. Biscuit x 1 type
I then dug out the final batch of a brown paper bag from the sister - she had a seemingly unlimitless supply of them (I'm not kidding. We used the bags for J's party 2 years ago too. Thanks the sister for your amazing super-handy bags!) - and decorated them. For decoration, I located an image that's in-line with the chosen cake.
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| Thank you Google images |
Then, I planned how best to involve the children; I do believe in getting them involved with such tasks that they are totally capable of helping. I decided to break the tasks over two days - in anticipation of them being distracted, and the reality that we only have very little time each evening before I start to chase them to bed anyway.
So on the first night, after I printed the pictures, I sought their help to cut. On the second night, we finished the bags! Rather efficient!
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| Cutting the pictures out - this took place 2 nights ago. |
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| Writing his name |
I stuck the images that K and J both helped to cut out (one more jaggardy than the other), and requested for J to write his name on the packs. I thought of asking him to write his classmate's names so they will have customised bags... but let's say I opted for the easier option of having him accomplish something accurately and presentable. I could have opted to print nice tags, but I thought it's way nicer to have him actively be involved.
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| Our factory line. From right, the MIL helped to open up the (slightly fragile) bag |
After the bags were prepared, our line went like this
First, the MIL helped to open up the fragile (it's paper, after all) bag. She takes the toys out from their tags (both activities may tear the packaging so the kids didn't go near that).
Next, J places the 3 toys into the bag.
Third, K drops in the good items. She was thrilled to have the line up and running and enjoyed it much (I'm so busy! Don't mess up my candy!, she thrilled).
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| All done! |
I shut the factory line after, and shooed them off to bed. I then spent time on my own, in peace and quiet, to quality check the contents, to ensure that they are all equal. Then, I sealed the bags.
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| Final product! |
It's simple only, but I felt so proud of it; because it was a joint effort by all of us and I'm so happy that the kids were excited to be part of the process.
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| Spot the typo |
I'm so happy that we had fun doing this too, and I know that birthdays will always be special to me and I will celebrate them with my children always! Till tomorrow, when we bring all these to his class!
PS: the typo is seen in the top right of the picture - JAAKE - oops
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