WILLOW'S SIXTH BIRTHDAY PARTY......

This year I flew to Brisbane for Willow's 6th Birthday Party.  She is at the age where birthdays are terribly exciting and she was so excited about have 8 or 9 friends along to a little birthday party Sarah held at the park for her....

I flew down the night of her birthday but her party wasn't until the Saturday.
On the Friday I met up with my good friend Kathy and we took Max and her grand daughter Hope to Rainbow City for a play whilst we caught up together.... We spent the morning there with the littlies and then headed back to Sarah's for lunch.  Kathy spent a good part of the afternoon with us there.

Friday night Sarah and I pretty much spent the night preparing and baking for Willow's Party.  She had a disaster on her hands when the Pinata chocolate dome she was making for Willow's birthday cake completely dissolved and fell apart.  By this stage the shops had closed so we couldn't attempt to make it again.  Sarah was a little upset as Willow had really wanted a Pinata Birthday Cake (mainly because it was full of lollies).  It just meant that we had to be creative and come up with something equally as good that she would like.

We set about remelting the chocolate and painting it onto so bake paper and we ended up making a chocolate rainbow for the cake and decided to make a double tier lolly cake instead.  Willow was delighted with it the following morning...

The make do birthday cake after the other failed

 It ended up being a rather late night with Sarah and I both crawling into bed after midnight.
Willow was so excited about her party that she was up trying to get dressed for it about 3.30am in the morning.  Sarah came in and sent her back to bed, but she was so excited she kept trying to look out of her blinds every 15 minutes or so to see if the sun was up yet.  As I was sleeping in her room, it meant that I got very little sleep that night. 

 Colin took off pretty early in the morning to secure a shelter shed up at the gardens for Willow's party and he actually did a great job decorating it with balloons and streamers...

Her party was for 10am in the morning as quite a few of the kids in her class had another party to go to in the afternoon.  All her uncle and aunties in town came to celebrate with her along with both of her grandmothers and close friends.

Chloe had helped Sarah out by making some sushi for the party and preparing a parcel post for the kids.  Sarah had also bought and filled a unicorn pinata for the children to bash the daylights out of and then they enjoyed just playing on the play equipment at the park...

Food table

Sushi made by Chloe

fruit platter made by Sarah's sister in law Brenda...

 The children all loved Willow's birthday cake, in fact once it was bought out, they lost interest in playing and wanted to hang around it until it was time to cut it which meant we ended up blowing the candles out and cutting it before we played any games.  In fact the cake so so appealing that we even had other stray kids from the park over checking it out and looking for a piece...

Time for the birthday girl to blow out her candles...

Then it was time for a few games.  Willow really wanted to hit the pinata and crack it open so that they could collect all the lollies...

That's it Willow give it a good wack. 

 No matter how hard they hit the thing, it just didn't want to break.  Colin went looking for a branch or two that they might be able to use so to do a little more damage to the old unicorn....

cake cuting - you have to love her face....

Time for some more games as they played parcel post...

Max gets to open the first parcel...

Having a little help from a friend..

Oh what can this be....

more paper off... pretty paper at that aso...

The lolly pops were a huge hit also...

 Even the adults had a great time together.  Our good friends the Vanderduys who have been missionaries up in PNG for the past 20 odd years made it home  and were able to come to Willow's 6th Birthday party..

There were quite a few adults there including our good friends the Vanderduys who were home on furlough from PNG for a coupe of years.  We are very closet o them and still think of their children as our adopted grandchildren.   It was so good to catch up with them and spend the afternoon with them.
Time to open some of Willow's beautifully wrapped Birthday presents.  Willow just loved doing this....

 It was good to get a few group shots of all her little friends as well...

Her friends from school

All of the little friends at her birthday party.

 Once her party was over it was time to head home where she got to enjoy her presents a little more....
Her main present from her parents this year was a rather large Barbi camping bus.  She adored it and  was even more thrilled to get a heap of new Barbies as presents from her friends.   

Max will Willow's new camping bus..

 What a wonderful birthday it has been for this little chicken....

Sarah was hoping that both children would have a sleep in the afternoon but I think that Willow was too excited to settle for a sleep.

I ended up going home with Chloe and Dan, as the Vandderduys were going over for the afternoon.  I haven't had a chance to catch up with Sharon in ages so it was great just to chill out with her and have a good chat whilst the young ones all took off to spend the afternoon together...

Willow and Max were coming over later in the afternoon and having a sleep over with me at Chloe's place.  We had a great time all together, and we all went to check the following morning to check out Dan and Chloe's new church.