Thankful Tuesdays: Family, friends and festivities!

We're heaving a huge sigh of relief now that Junior J's party is over.  We had invited family and friends down, and when the hubby was replying my sms about the confirmed guest list on his side, he ended the list with the comment "I think the house is going to explode!".  Our final confirmed guest list had 30 over adults (including ourselves), and 7 children, and we were wondering how we were going to squeeze everyone into our rather small flat...

But thankfully, everyone managed to fit in the place, partially because they came at slightly different times. :)  We were so thankful for the time we could spend with Junior J's grandparents, along with the time we could have chatting and catching up with our friends, and the little boy was really blessed to have everyone coming together to celebrate his birthday as well as their really thoughtful gifts.  It was also nice to see all the kids running around and playing, especially with the balloons we had floating around (thanks to our churchmates who helped to fill them!)...

I don't know why but the little boy always looks kinda lost in family shots!

Little A with her mummy.... who had many people commenting she looked Japanese. She does, doesn't she? :)

The youngest attendee, little R at our party! :)

And along the way, I think we've learnt quite a few lessons with regards to planning a party.  We've discovered that:

:: While ordering food from a few places may be a little troublesome, its nice to be able to pick and choose!  We thought cooking all the dishes might not be a good idea, since the party was almost directly after church and there was only about an hour for us to get everything ready, so we decided to order food from a few places (Am including the contacts since some friends were asking!).  We got the DIY popiah and pie tee set from Old Longhouse Popiah...

... and dry mee siam from Chilli Padi Catering (this one we had to pick up, so poor hubby drove in the pouring rain to collect the food, but people liked it so I guess it was worth the trouble).  The hubby also got a few of these curry puff thingys from Secret Recipe when he went to collect the cake:

:: That for salads to be nice, all you need is a good dressing, and fresh veggies!  (We bought boxes of veggies, added cherry tomatoes, parmesan cheese and Japanese dressing...)

:: The simplest to cook soups are sometimes the yummiest:

We had home-cooked kiam chye duck soup.  My MIL helped to prepare it since I was busy with party prep...
You just need to boil a chopped up onion, tomato and half a duck... and add salted veg (kiam chye) along the way!
Almost all the soup was gone (two pots worth of it) by the end of the party...

:: That sometimes cakes don't turn out the way they should... We had ordered carrot cake from Secret Recipe, hoping that it would be a healthier option compared to chocolate/butter cakes, but it turned out much sweeter than the versions we had tasted before.  But they did decorate the cake beautifully though!

:: Grandparents are fantastic helpers:  My in-laws had brought down fruits (pineapple, guava, oranges etc) when they came down to stay with us, and they also helped to chop up/peel/wash the other fruits we bought (rockmelon, grapes)... they washed up, topped up the soup, which freed us up so that we could chat with the guests.  As hubby put it "we would have just died if they weren't around to help!".

:: Birthday boys are kids after all, and may not exactly be co-operative sometimes... Junior J was tired after Sunday school and refused to finish his lunch, and he threw up his lunch later (all over me!) because he was too excited and was running around alot with a balloon.  But all in all he did try to be a good host, giving out party packs to the guests, and thanking them for coming (though he was quite shy with some of the guests that he wasn't familiar with!), and he did have a great time. :)

:: Celebrations with friends and family are just the best thing ever. :)  Our DG mates helped to give out cutlery, dish out the food, and generally were very helpful... and we were thankful that our usual fav photographer (aka Uncle Monster) was able to help us snap photos (all photos you see in this post were by him) during the party (thanks, man!), since we were just too busy to take photos!  Thanks, M, for taking photos too! :)

All in all, we thank God for everyone that was gathered under our roof to celebrate our little monkey turning two.  Thank you for coming!

Oh, and here's wishing everyone Happy Chinese New Year too!