Inspired from fellow mommy bloggers I always wanted to plan a themed party for Adi at home and the wish was fulfilled this year. Once it was decided to have it as a simple party at home inviting her school friends I started looking for ideas. Fruit themed party attracted me the most and the planning started. I wanted to work out the logistics before promising to Adi so collected all required details and then involved the little girl. She was thrilled to be part of the planning and preparation and the satisfaction level after the party is beyond words… Over to the party
Decorations:
Adi’s name banner was done by me with fruits drawn in between each letter. Do you see those apples, strawberries and grapes? The girl hugged me at least a dozen times for this banner 🙂
Hanged these inflatable fruits randomly at different places and also at front door so that it will be easy for guests to locate our house. That is the hallway outside our apartment leading to backyard door.
M’s contribution to decoration was with streamers
Fruit based party supplies – invitations, plates, cups, napkins
Food:
I made fruit pizza, cup cakes with strawberry/blueberry toppings and arranged cut fruits/marshmallows in a platter with skewers. The idea was for kids to make their own fruit kebabs. All the three items were huge hit. I made two batches of fruit pizza still we didn’t have any for ourself and one of the mommy asked for a to go 🙂 :). Kids made kebabs of their like and the platter was empty within minutes. I kept cantaloupes, red seedless grapes and banana for the kebabs.  Another mommy didn’t believe that cup cakes were baked at home. M agreed with her but later said, he would have given credit to me if I had baked it from the scratch. I used the cup cake mix. Still it was me who baked it at the right temperature/time and decorated with frosting and fruits. Doesn’t that count? 😦 This guy exists just to make sure that I won’t fly in the air even for a nano second.
Cake cutting errr Fruit pizza cutting:
We also ordered cheese pizza and bought cheese puffs/juices for the kids. For adults (mostly non-Indians), Amma prepared chicken biriyani, onion raita, chicken pepper gravy, Idli, coconut chutney, rasam and white rice. I was surprised to see that all of them tasted every dish without any fuss. They loved indian food and appreciated Amma very much.
Games:
It was a week long discussion between Adi and myself. I gave her many options and the girl finally choose three among them.
Candy toss: Kids have to stand at a distance and toss candy into a bowl. They earn all the candies tossed into the bowl and the one who have tossed the most got a medal at the end. I bought fruit shaped hard candies for this game.
Pin the tail on the donkey:Â Kids will be blind folded and then have to stick the tail on the donkey. I bought the kit from dollar store and the game was a huge hit among the kids. The one who was closest to the actual tail got a medal.
Straw candies: Put M&M’s on one bowl and the kid has to take the M&M using a straw and put it on another bowl. We had advance levels for kids who were good at it. We kept increasing the distance between the bowls and then made them kneel to get the candy. Adults were attracted by the game and they tried their hands too.
Making fruit kebab was itself like a game and there was pinata too. The kids loved the medal ceremony 🙂
And of course bubbles.. They played bubbles at backyard.
Return gift:
Fruit tote bag, Snap circuit and their candy loots. The fruit tote bag can be squeezed like a fruit. I missed to take a picture of them. These pictures are taken from the original websites.
It was not an easy task. M and Amma helped me to pull it together. It was a budget party and I was very glad as the actuals was very close to my initial estimation. There were obviously some tensions around like I kept the decorated cup cakes inside “just used” oven and the frosting started to melt. Luckily I noticed it at the right time and took the cup cakes off the oven. Then, Adi was throwing up in the morning. But, overall the party exceeded our expectation and we all had great fun. For once, I didn’t forget anything (remember the last time I forgot party hats?).
Thanks to our apartment supervisor. If he had not cleaned up the backyard I would not have planned this party at all. Also, thanks to LHB. He was a darling through out the party. He settled in ammachi’s lap and spent all the time observing the kids around. There was not even a tiny whine.
ETA: She was upset with the boys in the party. There is this girl disease and boy cancer viral and girl/boy thing going on now. Looks like if a boy touches a girl he will turn into a girl and that’s girl disease. Don’t ask me about boy cancer. I didn’t ask them either.  Looks like these boys threw most of her stuff in a bucket full of water and she was very upset about it.  Still she gave me thumbs up and 5/5 for the party and that’s is all I wanted end of day 🙂
We had around 10 kids and 10 adults in total.
For those interested I bought most of these items from orientaltrading.com and rest from dollar store except for the snap circuit. Â Oriental is a very good site for party supplies and its value for money.
On her birthday eve we went to Paratha junction for dinner. It was a bad choice as food was not great. Still, all that mattered to the little girl is that she went to a restaurant with family for dinner on her birthday.
On a different note, this was my breakfast on the party day which collided with Mother’s day. Adi fixed this for me with Ammachi’s help. She remembered that  I like Idli podi for the side. A thoughtful girl I have 🙂 She also asked me what did I give to my Amma?
Btw that’s her old picture in new frame.
Last Friday I took Amma to a restaurant for lunch and gave her the printed copy of  “My Amma” post. She was overwhelmed is an understatement.
Between my littles and me 