Lottie's 2nd Birthday

Hello everyone!  I hope you've been enjoying these last few weeks of summer!  I can't believe I haven't updated in so long, this past week has gone past in a blur...  I'm back up to full-time hours at my summer job in the University halls of residence as we're busy preparing all the flats for the students to move back in in September; plus I had a friend to stay at the weekend; had a few fun nights out; accidentaly invited 9 people round for dinner as a result of one of those nights out; ran a stall at the bootsale and made nearly £200; and had a brief visit to the hospital with a concussion!  What with all of this combined with my still-dodgy internet, I might not be properly back on my blogging schedule until next month!

Keeping up with the past week's hectic theme, I'm going to share some pictures from a very hectic weekend when Tetley and I went to stay with my sister Mairi to help out at my niece's 2nd birthday party.

As you may have gathered from my previous post, Mairi loves vintage style, but is also a total perfectionist, which makes party preparation quite a scary experience!  Mairi's partner Carrie had to make Mairi promise to calm down this year after we helped out at Lottie's first birthday and were forced to deflate and then reinflate most of the balloons to make sure they were all exactly the same size...  If  there was a birthday party version of the word 'bridezilla,' it would definitely apply to Mairi!  That said, Mairi's perfectionism does always result in a pretty amazing party, and this year was no exception.  Somehow Lottie's birthday was lucky enough to fall on a sunny weekend, so we were able to hold the party in the garden, with Mairi's homemade banner making an appearance on the shed.  Every year, we add a new picture of Lottie's face to the display, and I put together this year's rabbit hat!

For party entertainment, Mairi put together a ridiculously elaborate puppet show with help from my three nephews.  It was called 'Intergalactic Lottie' and was the story of Lottie's journey to space to find fame, complete with four set changes and well over ten puppets - I'm not sure how Mairi plans to top this for Lottie's third birthday!

There were also a lot of retro-style party games, including pass the parcel, a dancing contest and pin the tail on the donkey.  I painted the donkey but I feel it was slightly wasted on two year olds who were lucky if they managed to stick the tail on the paper, let alone the donkey itself!

We added a sign and balloons to the door and hung up a pinata (which turned out to be rididulously hard to beat as it was so flat, it took my nephews about 15 minutes to get to the sweets...)

The night before the party was spent making food - we went with a retro theme again with homemade biscuits, jelly boats, cheese and pineapple on sticks, and sausages on sticks displayed in some adorable hedgehogs that Tetley constructed.  Also note the beer and wine hidden behind the jugs of juice... there were a lot of mums and dads at the party too!

The hardworking party planners enjoying a glass of said wine!

The beautiful birthday girl in her new party dress!

My nephews Sam and Leo... when Tetley saw their matching tshirts from afar, he thought Mairi had made 'Lottie's party' tshirts for all the guests, I really wouldn't have been surprised!

Some of the other lovely guests!

Lottie with her grandparents...

...and her Mummies!

Finally, instead of making a big cake, Mairi and I decorated these cupcakes - we were meant to stick to four different animals but it quickly became more fancy!

I'm sorry this has been such a long post - there was so much going on at the party and so many photos taken that it was really dificult to narrow it down.  Mairi claims that after all the effort put in this year, she's going to take Lottie to Pizza Hut next year, but I'm sure when the time comes Tetley and I will be called in again to create an even more elaborate party!

Faye

xxx