Lil J's 4th

We had a simple celebration for Lil J turning four over the weekend. I must be getting older, or perhaps we were rather tired out this month. Whatever the case, I realize our parties are getting simpler and simpler these days, but I guess sometimes simpler is better!  I initially wanted the bare minimum for the party (food, friends and cake), since we had just come back from Legoland, and I've been exhausted these days. 

However, Junior J got all excited about preparing for the party. The in-laws were visiting, and were all ready to string up decorations (they've been so used to helping to put up streamers and blowing balloons for our parties!). In the end, we managed to pull together a simple party, and got to celebrate and had a great time chatting with friends. The kids more or less played nicely together, even though I didn't plan for games this round. So I guess we more or less fulfilled our main objective of a birthday party: to celebrate a special little boy turning one year older, and fill the home with the laughter and chatter of loved ones gathering for a celebration.

This round, we had a rainbow theme for the backdrop, with our usual streamer "wall" and balloons, and birthday bunting. However, we tried using tissue paper (from Daiso, which comes in a pack of 25 sheets of 5 different colours) for the streamers instead of crepe paper. This proved to be a lot easier and faster to put up, since you just need to cut the paper into strips and hang them up sheet by sheet, instead of streamer by streamer. The birthday bunting was from Cotton On Kids (I bought it when it was on offer), and I love how the black lettering stands out against the streamers!

Again, we had our usual chalkboard birthday greeting. Lil J wanted a dinosaur party, which surprised us as he isn't too keen on dinosaurs unlike his brother. But we went with his request, so I drew in dinosaurs, and we had dino cake toppers and party packs.

For the party packs, we did something similar to what we prepared for Junior J's 6th: Kraft paper bags from Daiso with backgrounds painted by Junior J, and Perler bead tags (again, assembled by Junior J).

We filled them with crayons, stickers (both from Daiso), and some munchies.

Junior J started freaking out before the party, because he realized that I had randomly matched the dinosaurs to the bags. According to him, there were only volcanoes and flowers in the Cretaceous, so those paper bags with volcanoes and flowers painted on them had to have Cretaceous dinosaurs matched to them. So he sat down and made more dinosaur tags hours before the party, so that everything would be accurate. Thankfully, we managed to shuffle the dinos around and he only needed to make one more!

Food-wise, we catered a popiah and kueh pie ti set from Old Long House Popiah.

We also bought curry puffs, fishballs and other finger food from Old Chang Kee, and the in-laws helped to make konnyaku jelly and cut fruit.

The cake was one of Lil J's fav. He doesn't get to eat much store-bought cake, since he still has an egg allergy. We recently discovered that Cedele sells an eggless truffle cake, which is pretty yummy, so we bought one for the party. We dressed up the cake using Perler bead dinosaurs. Junior J made a dimetrodon for Lil J, as he said it was one of his brother's favourite prehistoric creatures. We couldn't find a bead template for that, so he created his own design!

All in all, it was a simple, homey affair. But one filled with fun, laughter and lots of love. :) Happy Birthday, my not so little Lil J!

PS: You can read all our party posts here.