my sun, my stars

Balloons, giant number four balloon, a pig cake, a tractor ride. Nothing was spared for the birthday party down at the farm on Saturday. We were blessed with a fantastic sunny weather for the whole weekend, which really made our celebrations all the more special.
It was the first time we organised a "party" for our daughter, so we decided to book it with one of the local farms we visited before. For a four year-old active animal lover, it was just the right choice.
I thought the highlight would be the private animal handling session, but it turned out the tractor ride  won it.
We had planned to bake a cake for the evening after the party, but the gorgeous pig cake we ordered for the party was so big we had loads left, so the homebaking will have to wait till next weekend when we have more guests coming to celebrate this special occasion.

We were lucky and grateful that the party turned out so well. Here are a few tips I picked up along the process:

* book your event WELL in advance - I mean at least 6 weeks. The farm party I booked was actually way more popular than I thought, and on the day I wanted there was only one opening left! 

*party bags - this was a gandma job, saving me time and hassle to look for all the bits and bobs. She got the plain bags (Hobbycraft I think), stickers and sweets. I am not one for too many plastic useless toys in party bags, so I was in charge of finding something not-too-useless. In the end I settle for a set of Frozen hairpins for the girls and one of those funny compressed face towels for boys, both from Wilko

*our gorgeous Pig Cake is from Marks and Spencer, they take an online order and then you just collect a day or so before the party, it was perfect

* the few decorations I got are from our local Tesco supermarket (the big 4 is not). I had literally zero time to do anything, so those paper balls were a blessing, and they are super easy to put up

* Finally, the ultimate alpha mum trick - I used my original guest list to write down who each present was from so that we can thank everyone individually. Simple but useful ;)