Celebrating Alfie’s 3rd birthday

These posts have become like a yearly tradition. I can’t believe I am the mumma of a three-year-old! And thanks to corona, Alfie had the longest birthday celebrations ever.

Early celebrations

They began the weekend before, when Ash’s family were over. We just had a really small tea party in the garden. His birthday was on a Wednesday (the 16^th), and so we didn’t do anything – Alfie was at nursery and we were both at work – other than open presents in the evening. The day after was spent at home, with a treat breakfast out (at the Game Changer Kitchen café – highly recommend), and then more family over in the afternoon. On the Saturday, my mum and brother were here – and we had a barbecue, which was lovely.

Party time!

That bombshell from Boris really put a spanner in the works – I honestly didn’t sleep with worry that night! How could we have a party when no more than six could attend? Well I had staggered it already, with nursery friends coming over in the morning and then estate/MK friends in the afternoon – slots of 10-12pm and 1-3pm. But to meet the guidelines, I had to rearrange hourly slots, so that only two friends (plus one parent each) were over at any one time, to make the six. I’m so grateful that people a) understood; and b) still wanted to come! I really didn’t want to let Alfie down.

Not only that, but we had hired a bouncy castle all day, from Little Monsters Soft Play, and I had already paid for a lot of the food bits and party bag items. I felt awful for the people that were travelling for an hour’s roundtrip for a one-hour party, but what can you do?

All the kids had a great time – they loved the bouncy castle. And I put on a small craft table, where everyone could colour in a face mask. There were unicorns, superheroes, animals and more to choose from. And of course, there was party food! I did all the savouries myself, but got a little help from PlatterELF for dessert, with some gorgeous bespoke sweet platters (containing mini chocolate bars, biscuits, cakes, Haribo and marshmallows). These were a hit with the adults, as well as the kids – Alfie ate most of the Haribo before midday! I don’t let him have sweets, so this was quite the novelty for him, and I don’t think he’s ever had so much sugar.

Let them eat cake

But onto the cake! And as I was always splitting the party into two, there was the need for two cakes. Having the hourly slots meant that we weren’t able to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. The cakes were courtesy of the beautiful Boni at Cakes by Bon. I’ve featured her on my blog before, as she [gifted] one of my mum’s birthday cakes.

This time I purchased a box of 12 cupcakes and ordered a 6-inch cake. I requested chocolate sponge covered in yellow buttercream (which Boni layered with chocolate ganache) as I was going to decorate the cake myself – Alfie asked me for a Mr Tumble chocolate cake. I bought an inedible personalised topper from eBay and decorated the cake with fondant spots in red, green and blue. Both the cupcakes and the chocolate cake were delicious. And more importantly, Alfie was impressed. His exact words were “wooow”.

While all the preparations and changes were stressful and I have no time booked off now until Christmas, that will definitely need to change. I honestly still feel tired. Dare I say it, it won’t be long before we are on that countdown. This year has been awful for so many people, but I’m so glad that Alfie had a wonderful time with his friends. It makes it all worthwhile. Especially at the end of the evening, when he said, “thank you mummy” and when I asked why, he replied “Alfie’s party”. It made me feel so happy.

Love, Lucy xx

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