Triplet's 3rd Birthday – 3rd Birthday Toys

Three year old triplets! It has happened! Yesterday was the triplet’s 3rd birthday so now there are three three year olds in our home. Can you believe it? It doesn’t seem like that long ago I was in labour and then giving birth to triplets by caesarian.

The triplet’s have been excited about the upcoming birthday. Imogen especially has been right onto it. The boys took a little bit longer to work out what a birthday was. While they were figuring that out, Immy was literally figuring out what she would wear on the special day. During a road trip last Friday night, I heard her musing aloud in the back, “On my birthday I’m going to wear a pretty pink dress.” She actually received a fairy dress from Target and was very excited to put it on yesterday. (Until she had a little accident in it.)

I was exhausted by the end of the evening last night. New toys are so exciting, but when there are three different sets of toys and three three year olds, fights are inevitable. Learning how to share and how to be gracious is such an important life skill, but oh my, it’s a wearying lesson to teach! Most of my morning talking through fights and meltdowns and building toys that kept falling down and apart,  (I’m sure The Accountant would not agree,  but I was wishing I had spent triple the price and bought some toys that were more sturdy. Honestly, quality can be such an issue these days!)

For their birthday they didn’t receive anything particularly extravagant. They each received two presents. I had bought a very large bucket of mobilo and split it into two boxes for Toby and Jayden. The older two boys have spent hours playing with mobilo at Kindy, so I thought the next two would probably love it too. The big boys were very excited that it was in the house and built all types of contraptions which the little boys played with happily. The little boys haven’t quite worked out how to clip it all together, and it is a bit hard for their little fingers, but I’m sure they will get the technique down very soon.

Triplet 3rd birthday present - mobilo
Playing with the mobilo.

Toby, who is mad about drumming, got a Wiggles drum kit. Hopefully he will stop emptying the Ikea buckets of toys and turning them all upside down and banging away with kitchen utensils now! It was a big hit yesterday and there were lots of fights over it. But every spare moment he could, Toby was clicking the sticks together in his intro and then banging away. I have to admit I had a headache at the end of the day, although I don’t think I can solely blame the drums.

3rd Birthday Drum Kit for Triplet
Drum away Toby!

Jayden got  a marble run. These are great for creativity, problem solving, science and, as it turns out, learning about gentleness and patience, because the silly thing was very easy to knock over and fall to pieces.

Triplet's Marble Run Third Birthday
Opps, over and out.

Once again, they were unable to construct it at this point, but I have no doubt that throughout their third year they will be able to piece it together to make runs. In the meantime, they loved being mesmerised by the marbles rolling down the various tracks.

Triplets third birthday marble run
Ready to go!

In addition to her dress, Imogen received two Lottie dolls. I had first seen these on Instagram and I loved Kelly’s review of the dolls on Be A Fun Mum. I really loved that they were dolls that would fit inside Imogen’s dolls house, yet the dolls looked like girls rather than adults, they had flat feet to walk in and no boobs! Plus their clothing and accessories were modest and super cute! I couldn’t get any in Toowoomba, but luckily I was able to pick two dolls up on a recent visit to Brisbane. Immy was thrilled with them and immediately wanted to undress them, it may take a little while for her to get used to putting such tiny clothing back on the dolls though!

triplet girls third birthday
Miss Im with her dolly.

Her other present was an ice-cream stacking game. They are having a small little ice-cream party on Sunday for lunch so I thought this game that I picked out of the Kindy Scholastic book club would be good to play then. I really liked playing it with the triplet’s yesterday. It comes with sounds and teaches following instructions and listening skills as you need to listen to the pre-recorded voice telling the player what colour or how many scoops to pile high. It also requires patience, motor skills, carefulness and turn taking.

triplets ice cream party
Stacking the ice creams

In the evening the triplet’s had chosen (influenced by their big brothers) pizza for dinner. I would have liked to let them make their own pizza again, but with such a busy day playing hard and having only arrived home the evening before, it was a relief that Daddy picked up pizza from the shop. I made some  wonky cupcakes so they could blow out some candles.

Triplets with birthday candles

Nanny and Uncle Peter had come over for dinner, I suspect they too went home with a headache. It was lots of fun, but oh so noisy. I think we need to do a little more work on demure table manners.

Triplets 3rd Birthday cake
I was taking a photo of Immy here, but hasn’t Toby done the cutest photo bomb?

So today, we are off to playgroup where they can share their marble cupcakes (I thought it was fitting to do three colours for the three children who are turning three) with their friends. When we come home again, I’m sure it will be more lessons in playing nicely. It’s hard work, but it is so worthwhile to learn multiple lessons through play. Buying gifts that the children can grow into also means that they will get a lot of value and use out of them. I look forward to seeing how they develop and get better at using them.

What type of games/toys do you like to give as birthday presents?

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Pizza Party for an 8th Birthday

It was my son’s birthday last week. Birthdays are so exciting when you are a child. It is one of my great delights in motherhood making birthdays special for the children so that they will be some of the golden memories etched into the memoir of childhood. I find having the particular date gives me focus and ambition – kind of like a due date. I’m the type of person that needs the due date in order to do the work. Give me an open ended assignment and I cannot guarantee it will be achieved.

I had a bit of trouble this year trying to decide what to buy Jonty for his birthday. He has so many toys, and even though he plays with them constantly and is not the type of kid to neglect his toys, he really doesn’t need any more. In the end, we decided to give him an experience. We have promised him a trip to Australia Zoo to celebrate his 8th year with his family. We’re happy with the concept that it is a present to be enjoyed as a whole family, it encourages a sense of community rather then being focussed on self and fosters a feeling of belonging. We will make it special for him by paying extra for him to have an animal encounter. (Although one of the cheaper animals, although it would have been nice if we had a few hundred dollars spare to let him pat a tiger.) He will also be in charge of deciding the itinerary for the day and all decisions will be deferred to him. Unfortunately he is going to have to wait until September when soccer season is over before we do the trip to the Sunshine Coast for this special day, so we had a few gifts of a DVD, CD’s and his first ‘real’ Bible. The kids gave him an Iron Man toy also.

This year Jonty had a Pizza Party. Strictly it was not a party. The Accountant was very clear about this. However, Jonty disregarded his father’s restrictions with the secure knowledge that extended family always celebrate one another’s birthdays. He also knew that this meant his five cousins would be showing up. Party. Right there. He also knows that his mother is amiable when it comes to inviting people around, so he politely asked months in advance if his best friend could come around on his birthday. Which I agree to. Fully knowing that because of the nature of the “Not Party” affair I would invite his best friend’s whole family and not the child alone. (As a side note, it is most convenient when your children befriend your friend’s children. This is the first year I have known Jonty’s friend’s family, and it makes life so much easier!) Once again knowing that I am a soft touch, he also requested that his kids church leaders come and since they are an absolutely awesome young married couple who have established a great relationship with Jonty and Trent. Let’s just say that encouraging solid role models in my children’s life is worth cooking an extra pizza for.

So, before we knew it with aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, child friend plus sibling and grown up friends we had clocked up 12 kids and 15 adults invited to his 8th Birthday celebration. (Not Party!) The Accountant is not known for his culinary ability, except for making Pizza. In this family, pizza making is a Daddy domain. Last month after hearing the children declare that “Mummy can’t cook pizza”, I determined to show them that of course I could cook pizza. Thanks to an expired batch of expired yeast my efforts were sabotaged and Daddy still wears the golden pizza crown.

And so, Daddy was requested to make pizza for the crowd. The Accountant and I were up until late the night before getting everything ready so that when we returned from church we would have as little to do as possible. The Accountant made all the bases and loaded the pizzas, I did the chopping. It was actually a really nice evening chatting away to one another as we did this.

Pizza making in progress

After arriving home from church the next day, The Accountant made some more pizza dough up so that the children could roll their dough and create their own pizzas.

The triplets at work.

This was a great activity for the children and they were really excited and loaded it with veggies they may not have eaten if anyone else had put it on their pizza.

The birthday boy and Daddy

It did also create a bit of a late lunch because the kids pizzas went in the oven first, so it took quite some time before there was enough room to start cooking the pizzas for the adults.

One small girl watching her pizza being cooked.

I think it all worked in the end with everyone being patient. (Although there could have been a few hungry adults who were just being polite.)

The best thing about being a “Not Party” was that I didn’t need to worry about party games, the kids just disappeared outside and were happy playing in the yard for hours. (Truthfully, the most stressful thing I find about children’s parties are the children who demand entertainment and structure.) In fact I had a bowl full of lollies for the kids, that I didn’t put out for them, they were just so busy that it didn’t happen.

For those familiar with the Australian classic, the original Woman’s Weekly Party Cakes book, Jonty chose the jelly pool out of that. In my children’s cake making career, (now spanning 7 years starting at Jonty’s first birthday), I have never completely followed a picture of any one cake. This year it was no different. When I was trying to think what figures to put swimming in the pool, I came up with the idea of having Lego characters. I bought a small box with a shark, jet ski and surfer, and ended up coming up with the idea of doing a beach rather then a pool.

Jonty didn’t care whether it was a beach or a pool, just so long it had chocolate biscuits on the side and jelly in the middle!

The shadow is a kids hand, this is the only photo I could get without a kids hand in it. They kept on pointing and trying to touch. Very popular cake!

So voila! A beach cake, blue icing on the outside since the ocean doesn’t have edges like a pool, crushed up biscuit for the sand and Lego characters drifting around or lounging on sour strap towels. It was a little hard to take a photo of the cake unfortunately. Normally I would take a photo when I finished icing it, but because this cake wasn’t finished until I put the jelly in just before serving, I had a crowd of children around the cake while we tried to take some pictures. I must say, jelly with cake is a huge hit with the kids!

See, look at the hands. They just couldn’t help themselves! 

So, do you put limits on parties? Have you given your child non-toy presents? I’d love to hear how you make your children’s birthdays special. Did you or your siblings ever have the jelly pool when you were a child? (My sister had it.)

I am linking up with Essentially Jess for I Blog On Tuesday.

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Ladybug Party

On Saturday, my niece had a Ladybug Party for her 5th birthday. She’s such a funny little thing, my five year old niece. She makes us laugh, yet doesn’t like being the centre of attention. She is cuddly, but sometimes cuddles aren’t appropriate. She loves animals. Especially chooks. (Translation for the non-Aussie readers: Chickens.) My sister woke up one morning, opened her eyes to stare into a chooks beady eyes mere centimetres from her own. My little neice had brought the hen indoors to assist in a wake up call.

The birthday girl herself, thrilled that a lizard crashed her party.
Anyway, I should stop talking. This is for Wordless Wednesday, after all. The ladybug party was a thoroughly delightful affair. Right from Uncle Adrian carrying the triplets en masse from the car to the party. (They had just woken up from the long drive and were a bit groggy.) Unfortunately I only had one ladybug outfit, but Jayden was a stellar bug and surprised me by keeping it on the whole time.

 My two sisters had done a wonderful job with the food. Plenty of fruit and even cheese imitating ladybeetles. Including a watermelon, although it was a bit of a large freaky ladybug. I loved that Katrina put party snacks and fruit such as grapes and melon balls in cupcake papers. It made the party look all the more cheerful as well as making it easy for the children to grab food without putting grubby hands into bowls. There seemed to be less waste also.

Of course the obligatory birthday cake was a ladybug. My brother-in-law made it. He’s awesome at making kids cakes.

Grown up shennanigans.

And moments with little people waiting patiently for her Grandad to open her lollies. Complete with her “painting toes” to copy Mummy’s toes painted red and dotted with a sharpie for that ladybug look.

One more little thing that I have been remembering while celebrating my neice, Miss R’s, birthday. I’ve probably broken the Wordless Wednesday rule, (although honestly, have I not done less talking then normals?)  
Miss R was born in later in the day, but that morning I had been receiving IVF treatment. I had an embryo implanted. And that was part of beginning of Master Trent’s life.
On Miss R’s birthday, in an amazing moment of symmetry, I was once again undergoing an IVF procedure. This time, two eggs were implanted. Not long after, one of those eggs split, and hey presto, there were triplets on the way. (Read about it here)
A special day

for so many reasons.

Linking Up For Wordless Wednesday with 
My Little Drummer Boys
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The Triplet's 2nd Birthday Beach Party

On Monday our triplets turned 2 years old!

To celebrate we had a beach party. Sun, sand, water followed with balls, cupcakes, lollies, family and friends. Yep, by the conclusion of the day I had happy and tired children.

We didn’t have to pretend that we were having a beach party – we were really at the beach! It was a long weekend – the triplet’s birthday fell on Queensland’s Labour Day. We were staying at my family’s beach house in Bargara because I had a school reunion in Bundaberg on the Saturday night.

A beach party can be a perfect opportunity to keep things low key. Although, perhaps my mother would not agree with me, since she did a lot of the work while we were over at the beach with the kids! God bless her. (Love you Mum!) Unfortunately due to a severe lack of shortage in the fridge, I was unable to prepare the salads in advance. Although Mum looked pretty tired by the end of the day, I think she was happy to compromise to be salad chef if it meant not going to the beach. Mum hates the beach – particularly the sand! She always has. It would appear that little Imogen Jennifer – Mum’s namesake – didn’t inherit Grandma’s abhorrence of the sand. She loves it and spent the majority of her time at the beach building sandcastles!

But truly, it was a very easy birthday party to pull together. Which was great, because when you are away from home, you really don’t want to spend your entire holiday doing party preparations. The schedule was simply have the guests arrive, allow the children to have a quick play and the triplet’s open their presents. Slap on swimwear and suncream, eat an ice-cream and walk across to the beach. After playing on the beach, we returned home, ate cheese and nibbles, drank wine (adults) and soft drink for the kids (and non-drinkers!) then had a BBQ lunch simply with steak and salad for the adults and the kids had sausages (and mainly opted out of the salad, rather having sausages on rolls). Dessert was the birthday cupcakes. Easy Peasy!

The triplets with myself and my two sisters.

It was also simple because we had a small guest list. Although anything with my family is not small, since my sister has a lot of kids also! My mother had come to babysit my children on Saturday night and my 2 sisters came, one stopping in on her way home from a holiday up north with the family and my baby sister and her boyfriend drove from our home town. Also, my best friend (since year one) came. Katrina, Kylie and I all have five kids apiece. Just because we are wonder-women. Kylie had her two eldest missing, so altogether there were 13 children. I’m fairly certain the neighbours are grateful we don’t live there every week. The children had a lovely time playing together.

I had a few games in my head that we might be able to play if we needed to. (In case you were interested, I thought we could do “Throw the thong” (Americans, please don’t gasp, in Australia, a thong is footwear, as opposed to the more raunchy thongs you have!) The person who threw the thong the longest distance would win. Sandcastle building competitions. And sand races. However, I didn’t need to do any of this. I was correct in assuming that the children would keep themselves occupied. Not only did the children stay busy, so did the men. We were hanging out in the bend between the ocean and a lagoon. There was a natural rock formation there, but at the start my brother-in-law started throwing rocks onto it to force the water to flow to a particular area to make it faster on the boogie boards.

Before long the other two men started to get involved in the project. By the end, they were so engrossed in their ‘work’ that they were carting huge boulders from all over the beach to ford their little part of the outgoing tide!

The kids also took interest in the project and used their boogie boards to cart rocks over to Uncle Adrian who was chief engineer. I think it’s safe to say, they spent a lot more time building the wall then they spent cannoning through the inlet!

Apart from this, there was lots of swimming.

Playing in the sand.

Squirting with water bottles.

Playing with balls.

Chatting mothers.

Boogie Board fun.

And just general beach fun!

The triplet’s were so tired by the time we got home that we actually gave them a sandwich and then let them blow out their candles and eat their cupcakes.

The boys are completely mesmerised by the candles. Immy is just struggling to stay awake.
They all thought the cake was particularly yummy.

So much so that when Toby stole Immy’s, she dissolved into a puddle of tears.

Which was pretty well an indication that it was naptime. They completely zonked out for a couple of hours. (They would have slept longer if their cousins and friends weren’t playing enthusiastically on the same premises, but the triplets were happy enough to rejoin the fun!)

In order to keep it simple, I had chosen cupcakes. Not that it turned out as simple as I planned, because the oven wouldn’t work. So I had to find a time that was convenient and drive to Kylie’s house to bake them. Only to discover the next day that I simply had been pressing the wrong combination of buttons, and in fact the oven did work. Oh my, oh my. (She blushes at her own stupidity.)

To keep with the beach theme, we had tiny teddies hanging out on the beach, stretched luxuriously on their beach towels (sour straps) under an umbrella. Complete with dolphin swimming in the water!

The party favour that the children took home was a ‘beach ball’. (Although for most it was just a ball, netball, soccer, basketball or otherwise.) The kids all had a play with them before they went home. They were so excited to get them!

But the best part of these favours (in my opinion, not the kids) was that they looked great as decorations! Especially hanging some beach spades and buckets up before we went to the beach.

I can’t believe I have three two year olds now! I am so incredibly blessed to have each one of them in my life. Happy Birthday Toby, Jayden and Imogen!

I’m linking with Essentially Jess today.

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My Week According to Instagram

Firstly let me congratulate Jodie for winning the Personal Planner. I loved Jodie’s enthusiasm to fill her year with special moments with friends and family. I’m a big advocate of seizing the day and creating memories. All the best with entering coffee dates in your diary Jodie!
Along the same lines, here are some happy memories I have captured over the past week on Instagram.
The Accountant and I, at the last moment, went out for a Chinese dinner on our 15th Wedding Anniversary. So grateful to Grandma babysitting, especially since she was happy to come late so Alex could play indoor soccer first.

Fortune cookies. I don’t know if we’ve been awarded a great honor but we have certainly had lovely days with family. Easy? Not exactly. I don’t think you get easy days when you have triplets under the age of 2.

On the weekend we celebrated my Dad’s 60th birthday. I made the cake. I was making chocolate scrolls, but the silly rolling pin rolled over and squashed everything. Eventually the chocolate curls worked out.

Missy and Miss Rachael

My neice.

Our wedding anniversary gift from my mother. And we still haven’t used them. What’s with that? Loved my flowers from the hubster too.

The finished cake. Oh the drama. A very extremely wet weekend is not the best time to be decorating cakes I’ve discovered. The large variety of instructions/helpful (unhelpful) hints for peeling the photo from the backing were completely useless. It’s just as well it didn’t melt when I followed the instructions to put it in a slow oven to peel off. The backing started curling up within five seconds. Took about heart failure. I was saved by advice via facebook after a desperate status pleading for help. In the end ignoring the advice from the instructions which said 10-15 SECONDS (capitlised by them) in the freezer. I put it in for almost 15 minutes and it came off eventually.

We had lots of partying over the weekend. This is how little Missy went to sleep in between events. Sometimes you’ve just got to fall asleep right away.

We had a beautiful evening at Gabbinbar Homestead celebrating my parent’s 40th Wedding Anniversary.

Daddy walking his boy to school on J Boy’s 1st day of Year 1

Little Missy decided to wear pink gum boots. She looked quite comical bustling around in her pink boots and nappy.

Meanwhile the boys were getting into mischief. AGAIN. Climbing on furniture is considered an elite sport here at the moment. By all except Mummy.

Feel free to follow me on happyheart75
I’m participating in tinagray.me‘s:

And for the first time, I’m also joining with Insta-Friday at Life Rearranged

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A 3rd Birthday Party

3 year olds are full of fun, imagination and celebrating the small things in life with passion and joy. I wanted T-Star to have a party which would mirror the excitement and exuberance of a being three.

I’ve already talked about my special 3 year old and his birthday here. If you follow me on facebook, you would have seen that before T-Star’s birthday I was on the hunt for a birthday party theme.  There were several possibilities including monsters, dragons, motorbikes and fruit. Then J Boy threw in some suggestions and tried to indoctrinate T-Star to chose Diego. T-Star instantly said he wanted a dragon birthday. Done! Then I double checked, and he changed to an ice-cream party. Wasn’t on the party menu, but I thought, yep. I can do that. Done. “So, you want an ice-cream party?” No. It changed to a monster party. It then changed six million times. (Well, close to that amount) And I realised that I was the one that wanted a theme more than him. He just wanted a party and so long there were people he loved there, his friends, junk food, a cake and some games, he was going to be happy.

Oh, and then he had a request. He wanted a motorbike at his party.

Well, why not? He has got a grandfather who is a farmer, who does own a quad bike that T-Star adores riding. So, I got T-Star to ring Grandad up requesting to have his party at their house, which also has the added bonus of being able to use Grandma and Grandad’s pool. Of course, how could Grandad could not refuse, even though it would mean some major work helping the pool to recover from lying dormant over winter.

The party was starting to take shape. In the end, Grandad got right into the spirit and attached a trailer and bought some nice soft hay to take the kids for hay rides. They loved it. T-Star always insisted on driving with Grandad and was as proud as punch.

The pool was actually freezing. But it didn’t stop the kids! Which meant the parents demonstrated their unconditional love once again and got in to help them out and keep them safe.

After the swim it was time for some afternoon tea. T-Star (who wouldn’t swim) he was declared that we were having a ‘picnic’.

I was really pleased with what was on offer at the food table. Although there could have been more. Probably because I just didn’t have the time to prepare, the table was empty by the end. I always prefer leftovers, I hate to think of anyone leaving hungry. In this case, the kids certainly did not! They feasted! The adults probably could have nibbled a bit more, but I think there was enough for everyone to be content at least!

Anyway, here’s a closer look at what was on offer.

Tiny Teddy Cars.

Wormy Apples. (T-Star’s absolute favourite food!)

Had to include more fruit since T-Star just adores anything fruity. Watermelon stars

 Orange Fish

A Monster. The boys said he was spewing fruit salad. Apparantly it’s very cool to eat spewed fruit.

A friendly fire breathing dragon (especially one the candles were poked in his mouth!) was the birthday cake.   

My main idea for this cake came from here. I did modify it a little. Here is what my cake looked like before icing. I used one 20cm round cake and 2 bar cakes. After taking this photo, I put the cake in the freezer for half a day. I always ice frozen cakes. It makes it easier because the crumbs don’t get stuck in the icing as much.

All the hours of work making the cake is certainly worthwhile with the joy on his little face when he looked in wonder at the cake and blew out the candles.

 And ate it!!!

I had some games planned, but in the end we just did two time honoured favourites.

Pass the Parcel.

And a dragon pinata. You kind have to use your imagination to see that he’s a fire breathing dragon.

But he was lots of fun to smash.

And of course there were party bags to take home. The dragon dough eggs are playdough.

So altogether it was a lovely day. I just love doing parties for my kids! And their smiles really do make it all worthwhile!

Today I’m linking up with Essentially Jess‘s IBOT.

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The Triplet's Owl First Birthday Party

An owl theme for a birthday party was a lot of fun to prepare and there were so many cute owl themed ideas to implement to make the day special.

I’ve shared in the previous post about what the triplet’s did throughout the day they turned one. See it here

In this post, I thought I would go into further detail about some finer details of their actual party.

The theme was all things owls. Quite a simple theme to choose, since their nursery (See a picture of their nursery here) has been decorated in an owl theme. Most of my ideas came from Pinterest, feel free to check out my “Owl Party” board. There’s heaps of ideas that I would have loved to do, but quite frankly, I just didn’t have the time.

To start with nibbles, an owl cheese ball? Surely that’s not to cheesy?

I got the recipe here, which was really quite simple. 125g cream cheese, 125g grated cheese, 3 tablespoons gherkin relish. I threw it all in the mix master. It was very easy to shape. I’ve covered it in crushed pecans, flaked almonds for the tummy, carrot for beak and claws and the eyes are olives, apricots and sundried tomatoes. Plus I made double the recipe and made the 2nd into a ball and rolled it in paprika and curry powder and brought it to a party that we went to the day before. Add crackers and even a little kabana and it was popular with everyone.

I was going to make some owl devilled eggs. I googled a recipe, but didn’t think it looked as nice as Mum’s, so I rang Mum up to find out her secret. She promptly offered to make them for me, owl themed and all. She may have later regretted her offer, but oh well, I wasn’t going to turn down the offer! Look, aren’t they cute?

It was a beautifully hot day, so the owl ice cream cupcakes went down a treat. I was going to make regular owl cupcakes. Miss Rachael had made the cupcakes ready for me to ice, but at the last moment I had a brainwave that ice-cream would be better since we would already have so much birthday cake. (As it turned out, I have already iced them with left over birthday cake icing and they are frozen ready for T-Star’s playgroup on his birthday!) I softened regular vanilla ice cream and then spooned it into muffin tins lined with plastic wrap. Then it was simply a case of lifting the plastic out and decorating the circles of ice-cream. We had to do a fair bit of improvising according to what I had in the house, since my sister Julienne was helping me late at night. Chocolate ripple looked best for the wings, (the mint slice wings were yummy though also), lifesavers for eyes, (maltesers were a good substitute). An orange Jelly-bean cut up for a beak and chocolate buttons cut up for the eye brows.

At the beginning of the week I had commissioned Miss Rachael and the big boys the job of making a pinata. It looked great, don’t you agree? So cute! Although admittedly, the boys participation was limited. We will have to work on building their involvement and enthusiasm for the project for the next pinata project for T-Star’s November birthday!

Look at them all lined up and ready to give it their best shot to smash it to smithereens. Poor little fellow. He really didn’t deserve it.

I’ve already shared on Caitlin’s Happy Heart Facebook Page the favours I have made. Wherever possible, I like to present party favours that have a little bit of quality. Homemade gifts are the perfect way to achieve this aim. Which is why I made owl beanbags for this party.

Aren’t they adorable? Not only do they suit our theme, but they are great gifts for children. They have been very popular at our house for throwing and catching. (Although we are working on the difference of throwing the beanbag TO someone as opposed as throwing the beanbag AT someone) They boys also are having fun tossing the beanbags at a target and into a bucket. Even just holding the bags is a great sensory experience, which is always good for kinaesthetic learners such as my sons.

They are all a little bit unique, (a very loving way to describe my limited sewing ability!). I made a cardboard template, cut 2 pieces of fabric out. Sewed it wrong sides together, turned it out, sewed the eyes onto felt circle cut outs, then glue gunned the eyes and beak. Lastly I filled the owls with rice before sewing the last opening at the base.

Oh, and as a nice touch. The fabric I used was from the Triplet’s Monthly Project.

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2 months (November 2011) and 4 months (January 2012)

My children would be severely disappointed if they are ever sent home without something edible, (preferably including lollies), so I wouldn’t dare to omit these just because I wasn’t sending them home with a ‘loot bag’. Instead they went home with a cute little owl lolly jar!

Here are the cute little jars, just waiting to be filled.

The good thing about having triplets is that it’s very easy to collect 16 baby food jars. (Although later I realised I could have had minus four since the babies who were present didn’t need them!) I used a scrapbooking circle cutter and then glued googly eyes on. Then I hot glued the eyes, felt beak and feathers onto the jar. The big boys love sticking some owl stickers to pretty up the lids.

We made sure we had triplet coloured lollies! Blue mentos for Joey, Pink Marshmallows for Missy and Red Raspberries and Strawberries and Cream for Chook. (Not that any of them got to sample them!) The flowers in the background was to say Thank You to three special ladies who helped us throughout the past year. Our Mums and our Pastor’s wife who has ironed for us every week for over a year now.

Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of the kids filling their jars. But be assured, they were very cute holding their glass jars oh so very carefully and choosing the perfect delectables to fill the jar! But prior to the choice, the anticipation of eating the lollies was great.

Altogether it was a lovely day and a great party for my beautiful triplets.

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The Triplet's First Birthday!

It’s official! The triplets are now one year olds!

Sunday was the big B-Day. The babies had a wonderful start to the day by waking up at 6:30am instead of 5:00am. It was just as well, because they had very little sleep the rest of the day. They just snatched catnaps here and there as we had them on a very hectic schedule! (Poor babies!)

Once we were all up, we did the breakfast routine, and scurried around getting ready for the party that was scheduled after church. Of course in the midst of this was the opportunity for the triplets to receive their presents from Mummy and Daddy, (and their big brothers).

I love all their checks in appropriate colours – the colour theme of the day of course had to be red, blue, pink!

This is the first glimpse of the colours of the day. Of course it had to be the triplet’s colours. Red (Chook), Blue (Joey) and Pink (Missy).

So, what was in the boxes?

These cute little wheely bugs are adorable! If you are interested, I got a great deal over here at Classic Baby. (I’m just sharing this with you because I think they are wonderful, no other reason.) They go backwards, forwards and side to side. T-Star has already done some serious doughnuts on them! (Just as well he is getting a larger sized tiger one for his birthday in just over three weeks time.) At the moment the babies are using them as walkers or pushing them around on their knees. They are seriously loving them.

We then headed to church since it was a Sunday morning. After one year we are getting closer at arriving to church on time. We are now getting to the church just before it starts, but by the time we unload all the kids it’s started by the time we walk in. Just need to work on getting out the door five to ten minutes earlier! It sounds so easy. If only it were so.

Our church family were happy to share in celebrating the baby’s birthdays. We had this picture on the big screen of when they were tiny babies, and then one of last weeks beach pictures. How big they have grown in the last year!

As per usual the triplets fell asleep en route to church. As per usual they woke up during the transfer from car to stroller. In retrospect, we should have left them sleeping with one of us staying in the car and texting the other parent to come and help once they woke up. But hey, most of us don’t have the wisdom of hindsight to operate on.

So instead, the only sleep the babies got all day was a bit of a nap on the way to church, two babies had a little snooze in church, (Highly unusual. A friend offered to rock their pram while I listened to the sermon with my husband. She must have a gift.) and a little nap on the way home.

When we got home the house gradually started filling with guests. As I have said, it was only our family and a few very close friends, but my goodness! It became so very noisy so very quickly with 16 children 10 and under. I could blame the fact that 10 of those children were 4 years old and younger, but the reality is that it was the older kids making the most noise.

The babies couldn’t wait for the chicken that was being cooked on the BBQ. They ate some of their favourite root vegetable mash while most others consumed nibbles.

After that, being the eternal optimist I put them down for a nap. Considering all the older children were playing in the hallway outside their bedroom, expecting anyone to sleep under such conditions was an entirely ridiculous notion.

So, we all donned our party hats, (party hat wearing was strictly policed and enforced by eldest brother and pocket rocket cousin), and partied on.

My Dad and I
Good ol’ Dad manning the barbie.
Uncle Jo perfected how to wear a party hat AND not get sunburnt.

Anyway, why should the triplets miss out on their own party by going to sleep? Oh, extreme tiredness. Yes, that would be a good reason. Oh well, never mind!

Chook having a snuggle with Miss Rachael

But they were little troopers and embraced the birthday cake experience with enthusiasm, despite their sleepy states.

Cake time!
Chook, about to sample his cake.
Joey gives tick of approval

Having a post cake laugh with cousin R.

A tired cakey birthday girl sporting an impressive bruise. (She fell over on the tiles that morning.)

Once the babies had all finished, they had a bath.

Once they were dressed in their new owl shirts, they continued being the centre of attention.

With their owl beanbags.

Lastly, there were presents to open.

It was quite chaotic with so many willing ‘helpers’ all yelling instructions and on hand to tear up paper for the babies.

By the time everyone left, we had some babies suffering from extreme tiredness. (Not to mention us parents!) Poor little things were too tired to eat much dinner and had a good cry before drifting off to sleep. It probably has taken them three days to get over the excitement!

I’ll do another post detailing more about the owl theme of the party.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRIPLETS!

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Party Preparations

Hello if you follow me on facebook, (Click here to like my page!), you will have seen that packages are arriving and the excitement in the house at the moment is centred around the impending triple birthday on Sunday. That’s right, the triplets are turning one!

In fact today they received their very first first birthday cards and presents! Handmade patchwork owls made by Mrs T. onto shirts made in the triplet’s colours. Simply gorgeous!

And if you are crafty and would like a closer look, feel free to “Oooooh” and “Aaaaah”. I certainly did!

Clever lady, isn’t she? Thank you so much Mrs T!

Anyway, if I’m a little quiet at the moment, one of the reasons would be that I am in party preparing mode. I decided to keep the party small. Except I invited our family. Which is not small. And just added a few close friends. Now we’ve got an attendance list of 20 adults and 16 kids. (And the kids are only from four families! Mine included.)

Why is it that even though you know an event is coming up, my preparations are always left until the last minute? I’ve been so tired lately that I’ve been procrastinating doing anything and choosing to go to bed. Which has been wise. Except it always means that at this rate I’m going to end up really tired on party day. I think this has happened every time my child has had a birthday. I could say that I will go to bed on time the next three nights to prevent that. But I know I won’t. I’ve had two post midnight nights the past couple of nights, so maybe I should retire very soon tonight. After all, after three nights, I’ve finished a project.

Meet my owl army.

They are actually bean bags to giveaway to the children as favours. I really dislike filling loot bags with cheap Chinese plastic toys that every mother is just waiting for an opportunity to throw out. It is true the children do enjoy them, so I have been known to buy them, however, I try to be a bit creative normally when it comes to party favours. I thought these little guys were cute when I found them here. Already my boys have had lots of fun throwing and catching the prototype I made.

So, owl favours are now complete. I still have to make all food, do the grocery shopping for all food, make some party decorations, make part two of the party favours, wrap the pass the parcel, make the food and make three birthday cakes. Sheesh! And all during the school holidays, so I am constantly being interrupted! And I have another party to go to on Saturday, so last minute preps will be somewhat inhibited. Somehow it always does come together on the day. Fingers crossed this is no different!

I’ll look forward to sharing more about their birthday next week with you.

When you plan parties and events, are you a last minute organiser or do you get planned well in advance?

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Spy Party

I don’t know how J Boy gained his interest in spies at such a tender age, but he has become rather obsessed with them of late. After seeing on TV that overseas spies had been jailed after being caught there was a brief week when his resolve weakened his desire ‘to become a spy when he was a man.’ During that week, he decided he might become a farmer instead. However, then the toy sales came, and he decided that the thrill of using the myriad of spy gadgets trumped the danger involved with espionage.

This means creeping around the house, covert missions, binoculars and secrets are all favourite occupations of my eldest son.

So, a spy party was the obvious theme when celebrating J Boy’s 6th birthday this year.

With the triplets taking so much time, I tried to keep everything as simple as possible. Easy food and simple games were a must. I wasn’t able to spend as much time preparing as I normally might, so even some of the easy games that required preparation ended up being abandoned. However, I think the day went well in the end and the kids seemed to enjoy themselves, and that, as they say, is the main thing.

So here is how the party progressed.

1. Arrival – Security Scan. Photographed. Fill in Sign on Sheet. Obtain Code Name.

Agent Daddy looked very official as he scanned all the Junior Agents with J Boy’s new toy as they entered. Miss Rachael became as efficient as Moneypenny when getting the kids to fill out their names and take their fingerprints. Two words were picked from two separate containers (one of nouns, and one pre-dominantly of verbs) to make into a code name. Some of the classics were Marshmallow Booger, Snot Chaser, Lion Creeper and the birthday boy was Ant Zoomer. The kids thought it was hilarious.

The little ones being processed.
Oh dear. I think Agent Daddy is planning to frisk Agent Mummy.
The secret agents who turned up at Mission Headquarters for an elite spy training program.  The invitation said to come dressed as a spy or in disguise. They did a wonderful job! I particularly liked Agent 99 and Chief in the top left hand corner!

2. Laser Maze
The mission: Get through the course without touching the laser beams. (Red crepe paper, yellow warning tape.)

The course. Training has begun.
Special Agent Dr. Lion (Codename) completed the course with finesse.

I got this idea from pinterest, although the original idea was an indoor laser maze., To avoid extra mess and chaos I avoided bringing the troops inside. So, we decided to do an outdoor maze. Agent Daddy had the brilliant idea of setting it up under the trampoline. The kids loved crawling through the play equipment to get there and then bending and twisting to get through the obstacle course without touching the laser beams. Thankfully it was only a training course, otherwise I’m afraid a few alarms may have sounded…!

4. Spy Tins
Target practise throwing balls at tins painted as enemy spies.

Ze enemy is in ze tin.

This had been a craft project in our house over the last couple of weeks. An excellent opportunity to use up all those formula tins!

5. Pass the Parcel

Classic party game.

You will have disappointed guests at any child’s party if this game is missing. We made it fit the theme by downloading Mission Impossible and James Bond theme songs on I Tunes and playing them as the music. Admittedly, the significance was probably missed on the children who have not watched either movie. My nephew asked why we were playing ballet music. Ballet music apparently is anything instrumental.

6. Food!
Standard party junk food fodder.

Dinosaur fairy bread

To keep things simple, I had a fair few bought treats on the party table such jam tarts, mini pies and sausage rolls, chips and lollies, etc. The kids were mainly concerned with only the lollies anyway, even though we had just had a chocolate treasure hunt. I did have some fairy bread, homemade brownies, cake pops and the birthday cake.

The cake pops were little mini bombs. The little fuses were painted red on the end.

Warning! Explosives. Bomb Cake Pops.

I have been wanting to make a rainbow cake for a little while, so I suggested this be J Boy’s cake this year because I knew that it would be relatively simple to make. To keep with the spy theme said that it was a “Mystery Cake” because no one knew what was inside. I’m really happy with how it turned out. I was generous with the colouring, which resulted in lovely vivid colours. The gasps of approval when I cut the cake was very rewarding!

7. Drinks.

SPY-ders and Water with a twist – Truth Serum!


Proving that consumption is often to do with marketing, the water nearly all disappeared! How often does that happen at a kids party?

We also made spiders/spy-ders. I don’t know if this is just an Aussie thing, but if you aren’t familiar with it, it’s soft drink (soda) with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream in which makes a frothy creamy drink. Always a popular choice with kids. (Sorry, I didn’t get a photo of that one.)

8. Spy Mission.

Operation Retrieve Party Bag.

Towards the end of the party I gathered the kids together and very seriously told them that despite all our security checks at the gate, an enemy agent had got in and had stolen the box of party bags. (Agent 99 was quite alarmed at this news and had a mild panic attack.)  I had previously written out some badly rhyming clues to lead them to the next clues hidden throughout the backyard. The final clue led them to the box of party bags. I then held a spy training course on how to use the secret invisible ink spy pens with the ultra-violet light built into the pen’s lid. Very impressive stuff. (I bought these from Mad About Science. I was so proud to have a party bag that didn’t consist of mere cheap Chinese plastic rubbish toys that get thrown out in two minutes.)

A spy party was lots of fun. It’s a shame that once all the guests went home, the days finale had to be The Accountant severing an artery in his arm while doing odd jobs around the yard. This required an emergency trip to the doctors and six stitches. But apart from that I consider the day a success and my little 006 agent had a super day, and that is the main thing.

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