Happy Birthday Elena ~ One Week Early!!!

Yesterday we celebrated Elena's 6th Birthday one week early! Having one glorious week of sunshine after 12-13 weeks of incessant rainfall we decided to throw an impromptu party for Elena before the sun disappeared again... We knew it was going to be a big party so we needed for sanity's sake to have outdoor weather guaranteed!!!!! As this was the first birthday in our family since we moved house, except for Declan and he 'don't do parties!!!' and as Elena has been to a few parties where we live (there are fifteen houses and all the kids are of a similiar age to Elena and Alex) we felt we must ask them all, ~ that's 15 for a start. Then there is a handful of kids she knows outside school, the neighbourhood where we used to live, gymnastics etc and so we were up to 20 BEFORE we even got as far as her school. She has 36 kids in her class (yeah, some pupil-teacher ratio but then that's another topic for another day!) so I asked Elena to pick six, using the old rule one child for each year!!!


Decided that all this was to be arranged without Elena knowing as I did not want it to be the main topic of conversation in her school yesterday with some kids going, some not....So I took on the role of secret party planner, meeting parents at the school, tellling them that Elena's party was on but... don't tell your kids until AFTER school on Friday?????

Elena's very rushed last minute birthday cake!!!

Having spent too many hours organising this 'secret' party I forgot all about a cake for 30 people. So.... bought a caterpillar cake and another chocolate roll, put two blocks of icecream and wrote her name in smarties and it was a great success......

Surprised is too small a word to describe her face when she arrived home from school yesterday and saw a 16ft slide and all her friends waiting for her. With all my organising I wasn't organised enough to have had the camera ready to capture her face!!! They had a great time and I had Darrelle and her two friends Susie & Sorcha on hand to paint 30 small faces....They may have been amateurs but all the little partygoers had no complaints.....

The Birthday Girl...

Elena with Levijn, Cadhla & Seoda

Elena with her school friend Aishling

Big girls employed as 'face painters' Notice the small boy awaiting his turn..!!!