Christina's Fifth Birthday Party

The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted that Christina's birthday was actually a month ago and so we're a bit tardy with her birthday party! Well that's very true but in our defence Christina had barely started school a month ago and so we thought that it'd be nice to let her settle in and find out who here friends were - not that that particularly influenced who we put on the birthday list. As we used to do with Joshua we just invited the whole class to join us in Clown Town and let the guest-list be somewhat organic and self-selecting. It's a policy that has worked well in the past and it didn't fail us today either!

Just under twenty of her class-mates turned-up accompanied by parents (many of whom then disappeared to go shopping in Tesco) and laden with both presents and expectation. This suited us just fine as the kids all got to rush off and disappear within the extensive play-frame while we chatted and sorted out lunch for what were sure to be hungry children. They didn't disappoint us when the time came to file into the party booth and pretend like they were still at school:

And how well-behaved they all were - even the two hulking eight-year old's at the end who got to act a little like bouncers! Only the sunglasses were absent. What wasn't absent, of course, was the delightful cake - a Hello Kitty creation courtesy of our good friend Emma. Christina's face absolutely lit up when she clapped eyes on it and this wasn't just the effect of the candles:

I am this old - right?

All in all then a great two hours or so was had by all - long enough to have lots of birthday fun but not so long that anyone got over-tired and emotional (and that's just the parents). Even better we didn't have to do any washing up. What a bargain!