Matthew turned 3

I have been going on about Matthew’s birthday the last few days quite a lot on the blog. But it is such a big deal for any mum I’d say for their little baby to turn the big 3.

His actual birthday was on Friday. He went to crèche/nursery that day and when he came home,I had his presents corner all set up. Chloe was off crèche/nursery that day because she caught some sort of stomach bug. (They seem to make the round lately, Matthew picked it up too now and hubby has same symptoms).

 

For his birthday I got him paw patrol characters, the look out from paw patrol, Peppa Pig ABC learning jigsaw, Thomas the tank engine memory game, Thomas the tank engine jigsaw and clothes. Of course he loved the balloon over everything else.

We didn’t have a party because the big party was Saturday. I went into town and got 3 cupcakes. One for birthday boy, one for mammy and one for daddy. That way we had our own little celebration at home and he loved it.

Saturday morning was very stressful morning. The cake and cupcakes had icing on top so I decided to make them on the day so they are fresher as when I did them the evening before the party. His party was Thomas the tank engine themed. I am glad I had a theme in the end because he was so happy and delighted.

Baking generally is a very stressful time in my opinion anyway, so I tried to make it as easy as I could. I bought Tesco Vanilla cupcakes kits and just threw the ingredients together. I didn’t add the full icing, it is simply too much sugar for the kids. Instead I put a Thomas cupcake on top. Don’t they look delicious? They were a big hit.

This chocolate cake kit I picked up when I was in Germany in July.Very tasty. It’s made with sour cream. Again I put an icing sheet of Thomas on top. If you are wondering where I got these done, then check out Topcake’s Facebook page. They are based in Ireland and are just brilliant. The prices are reasonable too.

Matthew had his birthday party out in a play centre 15 mins away from town. We always love coming there on rainy days to pass the time. The party started at 1pm. I dropped in everything beforehand. He had his little friends coming from crèche/nursery and a few other kids we know.

Everyone had a 90 mins play while the mums and dads were catching up with some tea and cake. After that we went into the party room and they all sat down on their chairs ready for the food to be served. Matthew was sitting on a throne at the top of the table.

The kids meals options were sausage, chicken or fish fingers with chips. Drinks were Miwaldi blackcurrant and orange. I took Matthew off this drink a while ago because it is just as bad as fizzy drinks, even though he only used to get it at the weekend. He certainly took advantage of it at his party. That’s him sorted for another year.

When the food was finished, before everyone went off to play again, daddy got the cake, lit the candles and they played the happy birthday song. You should have seen Matthew. He was so excited. He was jumping all over the place and just so happy and smiling the whole way. He then blew out the candles with the help of one of his little friends from crèche/nursery. Everyone enjoyed the cake.

All kids received a party bag with some treats and goodies like a whistle in it. The cupcakes. I told the parents to take one home each for the kids, as they had a lot to eat already that day. Some of them did actually manage to eat the cupcake on top of that.

Slowly everyone started going home and I loaded everything back into the car. Chloe had some excitement and lots to look around. She fell asleep near the end. She did really well and was so well behaved the whole way.

Same with every kid, it was hard to get Matthew out. Once we left, he fell asleep in the car and slept a good while upstairs in his bed.

Matthew also received presents from his friends which was really nice but not necessary at all. The most important thing was that the kids enjoyed themselves. And they certainly did.

Have you had any birthdays lately? What did you do for it?