Piglet’s Panda Party

For the past two years, Piglet’s birthday was very much an afterthought.

His first birthday was fairly subdued considering I was working towards a project release, plus my MIL passed away just a couple of months earlier, making us not so interested in a big bash.

Last year, I was traveling to US on work, and Snubnose was performing in a ballet show on his birthday, which meant Piglet’s birthday got pushed to Christmas, and half our friends were already out-of-town.

This year, again everything seemed to be happening on Piglet’s birthday (Snubnose’s annual day performance, and a friend’s Christmas party that I had rashly offered to help put together), but this time we decided we could no longer put Piglet’s birthday on the back-burner, and I put all my energies into making his birthday happen and happen big.

Now the party is finally over, and I am exhausted, absolutely exhausted. It was bloody hard work, setting tables, cleaning the hall, cleaning up after the party, oof, every muscle in my body hurts, and I literally feel like I’ve been beaten black and blue. And it’s not like I did this alone, I had help in the form of professionals who helped design and organize the party.

The professionals were absolutely fabulous, super flexible with their ideas (I was hovering between panda, Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse clubhouse, Cat in the Hat – all of Piglet’s favorites), and willing to work within a budget, as I really, really didn’t want to be spending a bomb on a day’s frivolity. The budget constraints meant that we worked and reworked numbers continuously for the past two weeks, sending excel sheets back and forth trying to get the most bang for the buck.

But you know, it was all worth it to see Piglet’s happiness and to see Piglet and his friends having the greatest day.

The first thing we did was book a hall large enough to accommodate the party. All of Piglet’s classmates and his layout friends were invited, and I knew our house was just not big enough. In addition, Piglet wanted a bouncy castle. We could have done an outdoors bouncy castle outside our house, but considering the weather, we decided booking a large hall would be best. It turned out to be a wise decision considering the gloomy weather on the day.

Next was deciding on the theme, the cake, and the food. Last week, I blogged about how difficult it was turning out to be. But, thankfully, everything fell into place on the big day, and everyone had a blast.

Here are some photos of the arrangements we made. The theme of the party was panda, and so we went with a black and white and green color scheme.

We put up this poster outside the venue welcoming everyone to Piglet’s party. Turned out that was a good thing, as Piglet was enjoying himself so much in the bouncy castle that he wasn’t around to say hello and accept presents. All his friends had to go into the bouncy castle to meet him.

The bouncy castle was the premier attraction. It’s one thing that never fails to enthrall toddlers. Piglet and his friends (most of the boys) enjoyed bouncing. I know most of them never even bothered to come out of the castle. Why it was tough coaxing even Piglet to come out and cut his cake.

The mirror on the wall was very grimy, and to camouflage that we filled it up with this panda poster and a wall of balloons.

There were a lot of oohs and aahs when we opened up the cake. Turns out pandas are universal favorites 🙂 . All the kids wanted a piece of the panda and there was a good deal of scuffling and pushing. Finally one kid got the head, one got the ears, and so on. The panda was massacred piece by piece.

We also did a photo booth with lots of props. This was primarily for Snubnose and the other elder siblings at the party. They had a great time with the photo booth, but I realized that the smaller kids were just not into it, and this was something we need not have done so elaborately.

We also did themed chocolates, cupcakes, macaroons, and cake pops. These turned out to be super-popular. The macaroons and the cake pops got grabbed in minutes. I realized I could easily have skipped the photo booth and added extra sweets instead.

I’m kicking myself that I didn’t take proper shots of the sweets display before the kids arrived. I was too busy getting everything in order, and once the kids arrived, things got just too crazy, and so I have no shots of the very photogenic cake pops and macaroons.

I’m also kicking myself that I didn’t get a tattoo. The tattoo artist I signed up called me the day before the party and said she had some new tattoo idea than the conventional paint. I was too distracted to check the details, and was a little dismayed when she walked in with just two colors – red and black on the big day.

But once I saw the tattoo on Snubnose (the girl was inked all over!), I decided I wanted one too as it looked more sophisticated than the regular conventionally painted ones. They are also more long-lasting as I found out the next day when I bathed the littles. Snubnose then informed me that these tattoos last for three months. Ouch! I hope that’s not true, and double ouch! I hope the other mothers or their class teachers mind.

I was anyway way too busy seeing to the guests so tattooing (along with food) also went by the wayside. I was thrilled to see that the tattooist was very popular. Both adults and kids enjoyed it very much.

All said, Piglet’s birthday celebrations went off very well. Once all guests were gone, family and a few close friends stayed back gabbing about everything under the sun while Piglet continued to play with his closest friends.

The party was supposed to officially end at 3, but it went on long after 5 until Piglet almost fell off a slide from exhaustion. We then decided to call it a day, and packed up all the leftover food, and presents, and balloons and went home where the after party started.

I expected Piglet to go crazy with all his new gifts after the party, but he got totally side-tracked with his first gift, which was a remote control truck. This is Piglet’s first experience with remote control, and it was so much fun to see him figuring it out (and having so much fun figuring it out).

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He in fact enjoyed his truck so much that he completely forgot about all the others. They are still lying unopened at home 🙂 .

The balloons were also a hit after party. Snubnose and I bashed him up with them, and Piglet being the sport that he is didn’t mind one bit.

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It was the most awesome day. Tiring but awesome!