Crafty Party! Eden's 5th.

Eden wanted an Arty Crafty Party for his 5th birthday which sounded great fun! He helped with the invite in drawing a birthday cake I added to the design. We them emailed them out - a bit of a shortcut but it was sent during the school holidays with people in various places so it seemed the easiest!

I had a bit of fun with the food as usual with 'creative juice' ....a homemade label over juice bottles; 

Butterfly crudite....

and every party needs a watermelon pirate ship!

We also served hotdogs and pizza!

For a cake Eden requested a 'name cake' !?! " Basically Mummy you write everyone's names who is at the party on a cake which has a smaller cake on top and a little cake on top" OK Eden - you want a wedding cake then!? I did my best anyway and thank heaven for smarties hiding a multitude of sins! Eden's reaction was " Wow! Mummy that's awesome! ........The writing looks a bit worried though!" 

The main activity was painting a big cardboard castle! I really wish as always I had taken more pictures but here are a few. It was a great design I bought as a flatpack from Kideco and was great fun and really stayed up despite a lot of energetic play! All the grownups got stuck in painting later too which was great fun!

 Another fun craft activity was making structures with little gem sweeties and toothpicks. I really liked this one and some of the creative designs!

 We also had cookie decorating...

 And a craft for the grown-ups too of decorating foam glasses!

 Eden wanted to teach everyone how to make a balloon sword so I pre-inflated enough balloons for everyone and then he showed everyone what to do!

 This soon inevitably turned into a mass sword fight!!!! Delightful carnage with kids fighting kids, kids fighting adults and adults fighting adults! Everyone yelling and laughing and a literally riot of colour!

They all also had fun posing on the balloon motorbike I had made the day before!

 The fun continued to the evening hours and outside until it was dark. It was great fun seeing the grown-ups join in with the pass parcel too!

 After the fun of painting the castle was over they abandoned that in favour of painting the little tykes car instead!!

 Evie forgot her doll so we made a quick substitute with a cloths peg and fabric - the craftyness continued!!

 And Auntie Angus tried to puzzle out the lego instructions with Eden!!

 The kids finally crashed and it was really good to have fun and catch up with good friends!

All in all a great Arty Crafty Party!!!

Extension 1

Time for the conservatory to to come down! To be honest we are quite surprised it is still intact after various storms in which we though the roof would disappear! It had to go though and so Dan began to take it down. 

 A bit of javelin throwing with the planks!

 Roof all gone!

 The middle wall took a bit of bending to come down!

 Our neighbours kindly lent us their driveway for all the rubble to save us on a skip and the 'grab' came to take it away.

Dan hired a digger for a couple of days to the boys ( and Dan's) excitement!

 He dug out the area where the new extension and patio is going - a little way past the previous conservatory.

Instead of taking away the earth we saved a few quid again by taking the earth to the end of the garden in a skip-loader where Dan will re-landscape the garden at a later date (cause he hasn't got enough jobs! )

 JJ's class toy 'Gingy' came to visit and got stuck in too!

 

 Our lovely lawn :-(

 Checking measurements!

The next step was digging the footings. 'Aggy and his digger' arrived and made a start - with Eden giving  a hand!

 Another Grab load taking away to the backdrop of a rainbow!

 A few measurements before the concrete went in!

They won't be needed for a little while, however Dan enlisted the help of some of the boys from into receiving delivery of the steel beams. They certainly weighed a tonne!

Another day another new stage. The bricks arrived and again we temporarily used the neighbours' drive. Dan then spent the rest of the day barrowing it all round the back. He was knackered by the end of the day!!!

 Half way!