Last weekend we had Chloe’s third birthday party. She doesn’t like to make too much fuss about her birthday as long as there is cake. For Matthew’s third birthday we went to the play centre but he is a lot more social than her. She just prefers to have it in the small circle so we just invited the cousins from Bray.
As Chloe is big into Peppa, I decided to plan a Peppa themed birthday party for, nothing too crazy though. Last year she had a Minnie Mouse themed birthday. So I took to Pinterest, as you do. All the inspirations come from Pinterest. The first step is to buy the party accessoires such as banners, ballons, table clothes, cups and plates. Normally I pick these up from Woodies but their delivery within Ireland is a bit excessive. Luckily I was able to pick it up in Tesco.
For food inspiration I also took to Pinterest. Last year I just had sandwiches, crisps and fruit. This year I wanted to up my game and cook something for the kids as well for the adults. Tesco’s curly fries was matching perfectly as the piggies tails. I also found a super healthy recipe on Jolene’s food blog One Yummy Mummy for nuggets. I didn’t wanna throw the chicken nuggets from the freezer in the oven so as an alternative I made them from scratch and used turkey mince. They were delicious.
Another recipe I found on Pinterest was Macaroni Cheese Bites. They are simply made in muffin tins. Very nice I have to say. My kids like to be picky eaters though and didn’t touch it really. It’s simple pasta and no sauce, ah well. More for the adults. For the adults I made a lovely coconut yoghurt curry. Everyone loved it. It made the round to a few friends in the mean time and they loved it too. If you would like to recreate it too you can find it on this website.
For the cake I keep it simple each year. I never really make a cake recipe from scratch. I buy Betty Crocker’s cake mix. For Chloe’s cake I chose the chocolate swirl and additionally I bought the tempting chocolate icing also from Betty Crocker. It’s so nice. The only thing I make from scratch are the cupcakes. I went with smooth and fluffy chocolate ones this time and added a bit of the icing on top of it, too.
Since Matthew’s first birthday I have been buying the icing sheets for the cake and the cupcakes from the same company. They are called Edible Cake Toppers on Facebook if you are interested. They have every single design you require. She even makes you a custom one if you needed one that was not on the website.
Everyone started arriving around 2pm. We had food half an hour later. It was good to have lunch that late actually because it meant I didn’t have to stand in the kitchen again to make dinner. We had a light snack for that. Cake and cupcakes went down a treat. We all started singing “Happy Birthday” and Chloe was to blow out the candles but she was about a shy with all the people around her so her brother and cousin helped her out. She then digged into her yummy cake and cupcake.
The boys went outside to play some football while Chloe was playing with her new cupcake tray which she got from her cousins. The boys came inside and played on their Switch and Matthew on his iPad. I offered them ice cream then. The choice for Smarties and Brunch. And so the day was coming to an end. Everyone had a ball.
