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    Home » family

    By Amanda Smyth 13 Comments

    Buggy Good Party - the girl's insect birthday

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    D and I don't find out the gender of our babies during pregnancy. We're surprise people.

    But during my pregnancy with the Big Sister I was terrified that she would be a girl. The reason is simple - I don't do princesses.

    I don't like painting my nails and my make-up skills are rudimentary at best. I pictured myself sitting at dancing lessons with all the other dancing mummies and it filled me with dread. Hairnets, hair-clips and ribbons? It's enough to make a woman break into a cold sweat.

    Up until now we've done OK. I've gently steered the Big Sister down the Dora path, up Diego lane and finally in the direction of the lovely Bindi Irwin - crisis averted, right?

    Wrong! Turns out that three-going-on-four is the dawn of all things princess for little girls. So, this year in an effort to avoid a princess party, I declared the theme early - the girls would have an insect party.

    Invitations

    Up until now, I've designed the Big Sister's invitations myself. But when I saw these in the Pen and Paper Flowers store on Etsy I thought, why reinvent the wheel?

    We asked everybuggy to come dressed as their favourite insect. The Big Sister of course needed to be a butterfly. The Little Sister was a baby bumble bee. Mummy also dressed as a bee, despite the Big Sister's last-minute insistence that I come dressed as a slug, thank you darling.

    Food

    I tried to keep the food in line with the insect theme. Some of this worked. Some turned out a little... different... than I'd hoped.

    For instance, the breadroll snails turned out nicely.

    bug party ideas - breadroll snails

     

    While the hot moths came out from the oven looking like....err, well.... shall we say, looking like a baboon's bottom decidedly un-moth like.

    bug party ideas - hot dog moths

     

    Mum and Dad were a big help again this year - arriving just in time to help me decorate a hundred insect sugar cookies.

    I made some dips in my new Thermochef and served them in jars with sliced up vegies. These were a hit with both the kids and their mummies. It also helped delay the inevitable birthday party sugar crash.

    bug party ideas - vegies and dips in jars

    The Big Sister had specifically requested "ants on a log" and I made them, but in true Amanda-style I forgot to serve them at the party.

    bug party ideas - ants on a log

    I froze lolly snakes and cordial in icecube trays and served water and worms in icecubes to drink. These were a big hit and easily the least time-consuming item we made.

    bug party ideas - worms in icecubes

    I blended chocolate biscuits to make edible dirt, and added rainbow vines (a long thin lolly) to serve "worms in dirt".

    bug party ideas - worms in dirt

    The Swag

    As well as the expected take-home bag of lollies, we offered the kids the opportunity to plant a seed in a jar to take home. Even some of the big kids got into this one! Each of the children filled their jar with soil, and then planted a Melting Mammoth Snowpea and decorated their jar with stickers.

    I chose snowpeas because they're nice big seeds and they tend to show signs of life quickly - important when considering the attention span of the Big Sister and her little mates!

    bug party ideas - take home seed in jar

     

    I filled a store-bought lady beetle pinata with lollies, costume jewellery and toy bugs. Before the systematic swatting of the poor lady beetle, we gave each child a noodle-box to hold any goodies that they collected. The Noodle Boxes were the inspired idea of my friend Susan, who told me I could buy them cheaply at a local cleaning supply shop. Genius.

    bug party ideas - lady beetle boxes

    The Cakes

    Birthday cakes are important to kids - I can remember pouring over the Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book for hours. I've even blogged about the train cake. This is the first year that we had to produce two cakes (well, if you include the cakes that the girls got on their actual birthdays it turned out to be four cakes, but let's not dwell on the details!).

    I was lucky enough to have Dad by my side again - he's so good at this I'm considering petitioning the CWA for an honorary membership for the big fella!

    We made the Little Sister a bee hive cake. Sam and Donna at the Bake Shack helped me out by producing a dozen of the cutest icing bees you've ever seen. We baked banana cake in a dolly varden tin and then decorated it with honey buttercream icing.

    bug party ideas bee hive cake

    The Big Sister requested a butterfly cake with red, pink and purple icing (pink and purple for her and red for her cousin). We rented a Wilton Butterfly tin and used a Red Velvet packet mix. It was sufficiently girly and she as rapt.

    bug party ideas - butterfly cake

    The Best Bit?

    It was a great party. The Big Sister had a wonderful time and enjoyed playing with her friends and cousins. Old time favourites like statues and pass-the-parcel were a big hit and the swing set that Santa gave the girls got quite a workout.

    But for me, the funniest part of the day didn't happen at the party. It happened about two kilometers down the road - where, assisted by their GPS and it's misinterpretation of forestry roads - our friends Dawn and Malcolm were bogged and unable to reach us on our phones for a long while. Eventually, they raised D. D and Dad and the red tractor saved the day and they made it in time for the cake.

    My favourite part of the whole story? Dad did it all in his tinkling wings!

    Cooker and a Looker

    So, that's how the party went. It was buggy beautiful. But my reprieve from all things girly hasn't lasted long. The Big Sister has already declared her fifth birthday a princess party...

    ... looks like I only dodged that bullet once!

     

    A big thank you to everyone who came to the girl's party. Special thanks to Grandma and Granddad for the butterfly cakes and to Emily and Elise for their help in the party preparations. KT who came dressed as a pillow pet.  And of course to my birthday cavalry - JC and Mausie.

    In the immortal words of Jeff Fenech... I love youse all.

    xxx

     

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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Kelsey Wallace says

      August 02, 2012 at 8:39 pm

      Nice work 🙂 Looks like fun xxx

      Reply
      • cookerandalooker says

        August 04, 2012 at 4:04 pm

        Thanks Kels!

        Reply
    2. Dawn Pereira says

      August 02, 2012 at 11:21 pm

      Amanda you write so well really enjoyed reading about the girls party you've done a brilliant job of it. Was funny to see a pic of the slug stuck in mud although it wasn't so funny at the time that is until I saw your Dad coming to the rescue with his wings. Thanks to Dean for rescuing us. Aren't we lucky that our friends have tractors in their back yard.

      Reply
      • cookerandalooker says

        August 04, 2012 at 4:04 pm

        Thanks Dawn. So pleased that you made it. x

        Reply
    3. Fran Arnold says

      August 03, 2012 at 7:02 am

      This is really lovely - ;you did so much work to give the girls a fantastic-looking party. I know who I'll be coming to for party ideas when Sam turns 3! x

      Reply
      • cookerandalooker says

        August 04, 2012 at 4:03 pm

        At least there shouldn't be a princess party in your future! Or will there be?

        Reply
    4. KT says

      August 03, 2012 at 12:31 pm

      Great blog entry! I bet we see these pics all over pintrest in no time. Such a great day! Relieved there isn't a pic of my frumpy bug costume 😉 what will they have us dressing up as next year?......

      Reply
      • cookerandalooker says

        August 04, 2012 at 4:02 pm

        There's not a pic .... YET!

        Reply
    5. Loz says

      August 03, 2012 at 8:19 pm

      So beautiful Amanda. Sorry we couldn't make it! Madeline is having Lilo and Stitch cupcakes this year (tomorrow). I'm paying not playing as I wouldn't even know where to start with Stitch...eeek

      Reply
      • cookerandalooker says

        August 04, 2012 at 4:01 pm

        Hope Maddie's party is going well Lauren. x

        Reply
    6. Carolyn says

      August 24, 2012 at 4:24 pm

      WOW! very very impressive, it looks magical 🙂

      Reply

    Trackbacks

    1. Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book | Cooker and a Looker says:
      at

      [...] year’s theme was declared early – before we’d actually celebrated her birthday last year. Dust off your diamantés, kids. This year is princess [...]

      Reply
    2. early to bed {plus a free bedtime planner} - Cooker and a Looker says:
      at

      […] We had mixed success with the healthy lunch. The girls did well with their extra piece of fruit. I packed Bearhands smoko for when he wasn’t on the farm (the majority of which I found in his glove box later in the week). I made myself an omelette most mornings and fuelled my body for the day. The BUPA website has some kid-friendly recipes on the challenge website, so I let the kids loose in the kitchen one afternoon and let them rediscover ants on a log. […]

      Reply

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