Graemes Mexican Party

Hola! Way back in May we celebrated Graeme's 30th Birthday at Mexico with friends and whānau.

Graemes birthday has been the event of the year for us. We love celebrating things, we love our people, and we love birthdays. So, we've been planning for these celebrations for a year, putting aside money each week for the last year so when the time came, we could do what our hearts desired.

After much humming and haa'ing, we decided on having our party out and about, and catered for. It was more expensive than doing ourselves, but it took all of the stress out and meant we could invite who ever and didn't need to be worried for a "wet weather option". I also hired a friend to make the cake! Best decision of the year. It was amazing!

It took months to find a venue, after a whole lot of emails, and venue visits at various locations around the city and still not finding any where suitable. I mused to myself "it would be amazing to have a party with mexican fried chicken handed around", and so I email Mexico and we were in! They ticked all of the boxes and were fantastic hosts! 

We ended up having 65 friends and whānau. Even though we don't see many of these people very often they all hold dear places in our hearts and it was so great to have them.

I have only included a few photos in the post, but we are making up a photo book so we have picture of everyone! Lighting was hard, and most were taken with polaroids, so our photos aren't the greatest!

Our kids came for the first hour, then Nannie took them back to her house where a family friend babysat them while they slept. They were so excited to be at their Daddies party! And it was great having them there!! Also, Aunty Izy came from Australia to join in the celebrations!

The birthday boy! I surprise him by secretly handing out little badges with his face on them with a golden sparkly crown. See if you can spot them in the photos. He turned around and realised everyone was wearing them! So great. There were also some larger faces stuck on the walls. Graeme is our Party King, so it seemed fitting to have his face everywhere.

I strung up a few banners and decorations when we arrived but Mexico in Christchurch is so bright and fun, it really didn't need much. The decor is ace, as is the music. The atmosphere was perfect!

We also played pinata, which was a bit of a fail! Graeme ended up whacking his friend Joe over the head (not surprising, since Joe was standing next to it saying "hit me!") but the string holding it up didn't hold so we ended up ripping it open with our hands! Still good though.

I said a speech for Graeme, and then it was backed up with a Māori waiata (song), as is custom when honoring someone.

During the week we had secret practises for Purea Nei, a beautiful waiata. Jared was on guitar leading it, and started after my speech. 

Graeme said he was looking around taking in the song and then started to realise that everyone was singing, even people who didn't know Māori waitata, and then he started to realise how special it was and that everyone must have learnt it for him! 

Well, they did! 65 people, singing a song most of them didn't know for their friend who they were honoring. It doesn't get much more special than that! 

You can watch and pretend you were there with the video below::

Most of all, Graeme had a great night! He felt loved, celebrated and honored! 

Friends and Whānau, thank you for partying with us and being in our lives! 

xxx

(ps, Blog post on our birthday holiday here (yes, the celebrations seemed to continue for a whole month!)

Katies Birthday - Matariki Party

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This year, for Katies Second (!!) birthday, we celebrated Matariki with some little friends!

Katies party fell one day after the New Moon during Matariki, and right now Camilla and Katie are obsessed with stars and the moon, so it seemed a perfect time to decorate and celebrate the Maori New Year with them!

Matariki is a formation of 7 stars that appear for a few weeks in Winter in New Zealand, which marks the Maori New Year - a time for clearing the land, planting new crops, remembering the dead and celebrating new life.

If you're interested, you can read more about it here.

We decorated our lounge with a dark blue sheet that had the stars pinned to it in the Matariki formation. From the roof hung strings of silver shiney stars that glimmered and danced the light of the fairy lights around the room. 

It was truly magical to be in there with all the lights going. Camilla was so excited about it, and has been dancing under the stars ever since. 

All of this was so easy to do for such a great effect!

Katie had a little gaggle of Tamariki who came to celebrate her birthday with her! 

Together they coloured in little pottle's and planted tulip bulbs in them which will come out bright pink in Spring. 

Don't all kids love colouring and gardening? It was a success in terms of entertaining kids so the Mums could have a cup of tea in peace!

The kids loved it, and as we buried their bulbs we got to talk about how God makes things new and grows things, and how beautiful this earth is. The tulips were to then be planted at home, with another opportunity to talk about growing things if they wanted.

The blue cupcake time was hilarious. I over did it on the food colouring, and some of the kids ended up with blue poos in the days following! Hee! 

Katie LOVED being sung to, all that attention and a cake being placed in front of her was just so exciting!! She spent the following weeks requesting renditions of "Happy Birthday" and "Ra whanau", to which Milla happily obliged.  

Celebrating Matariki and Katies birthday combined his year was simple, achievable, and spot on for child understand and stage. Next year we will venture into more detail and try some new things out, including flying kites and marae visit.

I've always wanted to have a mid year celebration become a tradition in our family, and I think this one will be it! Next year, we will also throw a Matariki celebration for the Adults too!

Happy Birthday Katie!! 

Nga mihi x

Millas Fairy Tea Party

A few weeks ago we invited one of Milla's best friends around for a Fairy Tea Party. 

Her friend is newly fairy mad, and passes her days sprinkling glitter around her garden. I thought it would be cool if we gave them a little taste of some fairy magic, so together her Mum and I arranged a special party just for them.

Milla was SO excited for this party! 

The night before I set up her fairy tent in the lounge with fairy lights, a bright quilt, and I hung tulle from the ceiling to cover the entrance way. When her little friend walked in she was so amazed and excited, which instantly made it worth it!

The girls quickly tested our their flying skills on the trampoline. Kenzie said "I'm going to fly to Australia!" as only a 3 year old can say so adorably. 

After flying practice we sat down for some morning tea that was delivered by the fairies. The girls poured themselves some warm raspberry 'tea' and drank from pretty china tea cups, and Amanda made a beautiful morning tea for them - marshmallow sprinkles, melon star wands, toadstool cupcakes. It was delicious!

I think they got a big thrill out of drinking from big tea cups with a real tea pot <3 p="">

After morning tea we layed out some wand making supplies and with a little supervision the girls decorated their own wands.

To finish it off, Amanda surprised the girls with a wee bag that the fairies had gifted them. Inside were some fairy stones, some fairy dust and fairy stickers.

We sprinkled the fairy dust around our garden and put the stones in the lavender pot.

It was such a great morning and a really easy no-fuss party to throw for the girls! We organised it in a matter of days, and our girls were so surprised and in awe throughout the morning it was truly magical (for them, and us!)

Most of all, I loved that we were able to celebrate a new stage and expand on something one of the children was really into at the time. As I parent, I hope I can continue to be deliberate and creative in following my kids interests. 

I'm glad for good friends to share these experiences with!

Thanks for coming to play at our place! 

Love, Sophie & Milla x

(and if you're wondering, Katie the little sister was on a special daddy date during all of this!)

Katies Hungry Caterpillar Party

On Monday we had a Hungry Caterpillar party for Katie to celebrate her first year of life! If you've been around Katie at any time of the day, you might have noticed that food is constantly going in, and straight down without a pause between handfuls. 

She is our hungry caterpillar, and so this little party was rather appropriate.

We celebrated with family on the day of her birthday, and the following day had invited around a small group of our girls nearest and dearest little friends. There were 4 other Mums and 6 other little people, as well as our own two, and MrMoo took the afternoon off work for it (yay!).

It was a nice size and we all just fitted into our lounge. It was really great to have everyone there. Two of the friends even got pulled out of Kindy to attend! Lucky us! 

Katie devoured her cupcake and sent frosting flying everywhere!

All of the food was HC themed - apples, pears, salami, pizza, etc. It was easy to make a nice healthy kid friendly lunch! I printed off some of the pictures from the book and had them laminated and attached to tooth picks to stick in the food for labels. 

After eating we headed outside to find the (cardboard) fruit that had grown on our trees! After they kids had picked them and brought them to me for fruit salad I gave them some caterpillar / butterfly antenna! I think almost all of the kids loved them and kept them on most of the time! 

They looked sooo sweet with their little bug antenna on! 

Katie got to open some presents and she is quite a good un-wrapper! He surprise face is hilarious and she is really good at expressions. I love these photos of her looking at her new Maori Hungry Caterpillar book!

After receiving way too many beautiful and thoughtful gifts (!) I ran a little story time! Over the last few weeks I made up a felt board to tell the HC story on, and mustering all of my courage did an enthusiastic rendition for all of the kids and Mums! :)

To everyone:: Thank you soooo much for being part of Katies life and for celebrating with us! Your friendship and love means the world to us and we couldn't have got through this last year without you!

And a huge thank you to Georgia for taking all of these photos, and being the coolest Mum to Katies bestie! We love you!

READ MORE:
Katies 12 Month Update
Katie and Camillas Dedication
Katies Birth Story