The big girl turned a decade old at the end of last year which also symbolises that I've been in the motherhood journey for 10 long years already. I know of some friends who throw lavish parties for their kids to commemorate this milestone and in wanting to respect her wishes, I asked the girl how she would like to celebrate her special day.
It turned out that she just wanted to do what we've always done - invite a small handful of her good friends over to our humble home, have a tea party and play some games. Yup, that was all she asked for so how could I have rejected, right?
As usual, I asked her to decide on a theme that she liked and this time round, she wanted a UNICORN party. How magical and sweet it sounded and I was thankful to have a chance to do this for her before she turns into an adolescent and decides that many things now seem childish in her eyes. Will she? Well, I guess so. One day.
So, here's sharing all about her Unicorn Party, including the activities we did, the DIY decorations, the party favours and all the fun and laughter we had.
DIY DECORATIONS
Our wall decoration was kept simple and all I did was print out a "Happy Birthday" bunting and her name and then hung and stuck them up. To make it look a little more 3-dimensional, we also added golden foil "10" balloons and a cute unicorn one which I bought online. Yup, that was all. Simple but nice, right?
Our so-called dessert table was using a foldable table (it is very handy and I am glad we bought it a year ago!) and we laid out a disposable table cover, hung another unicorn bunting and some unicorn designed balloons.
What was on top of the table? Unicorn paper plates and cups, the party favours, cupcakes with unicorn toppers which we printed, cut and laminated, a lightbox with her name, as well as Ribena packets and mineral water bottles which had personalised wrappers around them. I loved how each of the Ribena packets said "You are our magical dream come true!" and hope it made her feel especially loved. By the way, it is very easy to print these out to stick on once you get your template with the right size and shape. All I do is use the same saved template but change the design to match the theme for every different party.
As for Angel's outfit, we kept it simple this year (do you still remember what she wore at her spy party last year?) and let her wear a plain white top, a colourful skirt filled with sequins, a unicorn hairband and a shrinky dink unicorn necklace which was a surprise present from me to her.
PARTY FAVOURS
For the party favours, each set included a unicorn notebook, a unicorn pencil case, a unicorn pen and a handmade bookmark from the birthday girl to thank her friends for their friendship. Each set cost about $10 and we couldn't have been able to afford that if there had been lots of guests at the party. That is another reason why we like to keep it an intimate affair and let the girl be able to interact with each and every of her buddies.
GAMES AND ACTIVITIES
The first thing we did was colouring! You can actually see how their colouring skills have evolved over the years and thus, I printed out colouring pages which were more elaborate and would test their skills. What was present in every of the pages? Well, a unicorn, of course! As mundane as it may sound, both of my girls still enjoy doing colouring and I can see that many of their friends do too (okay, actually I see it more in girls than boys) so we will keep this as long as they like it. It's one of the best activities to do while waiting for everyone to arrive so that the rest of the games can start when the guests are all present.
The second game was a CLAY MAKING contest! No guesses for what they were supposed to make, haha. I specially printed out some samples and easy-to-follow instructions for them to follow if they wanted to. It turned out that some of the more creative ones were able to do their own version of an unicorn and it was nice seeing how they each took time and effort to craft their clay model until they were satisfied with it. I gave them a time limit of 15 minutes and guess who was the last to wrap up? Well, my perfectionist little girl, who decided to change her design at the last minute. Well, I am so proud of what you did though, my dear, and all the effort you put into it.
When everyone was done, we gathered all the final clay models and placed them side by side. This was when we had a voting contest! Each person was allowed to vote three times for their favorite designs and the one with the most votes would be the winner. I guess the friends were being sweet to the birthday girl because she turned out to be the champion with the highest votes.
Guess which one was hers?
Well, it's the first one from the left in the second row, the one with the small face and rainbow coloured hair with swirls. I must say the girls did a very good job because all of their masterpieces looked so awesome. To let them bring their artwork back to show their parents (it was a drop off party so none of the parents were around which also means I was alone with eight kids that day as the hubby brought the younger two for swimming, haha), I gave them each a container so they could keep the clay in good shape and bring it home.
After the clay making, it was tea break! Angel was just happy to sit down and eat while chatting with her good friends. Some of them also whipped out their mobile phones and started to take wefies. Haha. Yup, I think Angel is one of the rare few who doesn't have a phone yet but this mature little girl told me that she doesn't need or want one yet.
We had cupcakes, chocolate eclairs, jelly, nuggets, fries, puddings and fruits. Yup, nothing too fanciful but I've come to realize that at their age, the eating part is never the highlight of the party. Instead, they always look forward to the games. These girls were asking me if there were more activities after they were done eating. Of course, let's continue playing then!
The next game was the highlight of the party - Unicorn Treasure Hunt!
This was a game that I downloaded online and I just had to change the clues and put in the hiding spots in our house. After doing up the clues, I printed them out, cut them up and put them into envelopes - one color for each team. The girls did a Black or White to determine how they were going to split into two teams and off they went!
Each had their own 'headquarters' and basically, they just had to solve a series of clues like spot the difference, match the shadow, solve the maze, count the items or find the missing puzzle in order to determine which is the hiding spot for their next clue. They had to work together and once they decided on the next spot, they would run to it hunt around for the next clue.
Some of the girls were so sweet as to say "Sorry Auntie Summer, we made your house so messy", aiyoh, so sensible and nice of them. But that was also the fun part - you should see their ecstatic faces whenever they found the next clue. They had to solve a total of nine clues before they got to the final one and this was a game which kept all of them excited and happy for a good half an hour.
Since we still had some time to spare, we played our last game which was Charades! The kids were separated into two teams - the little sister and brother returned home to join us for this game - and they had to take turns to act out the clue. The first person would start and act to the second person - the rest of the players would be facing their backs to them - who would then pass to the third, and fourth, and fifth before the last person made a guess.
I tell you, it was HILARIOUS! Some of the actions got modified out of nowhere and it was so funny to see what these kids were up to. Since it was a unicorn party, they had to act out different ANIMALS and let's just say I gave them some easy ones (like flamingo and king kong) and some super hard ones (like whale and rattlesnake).
The kids always love it when Uncle Xavier joins in because he will do some silly antics and make everyone laugh. For instance, in charades, the animal he got was zebra but he proceeded to act out a zebra crossing which got everyone confused yet they found his pedestrian act so funny too.
That marked the end of our 2-hour party and the kids had to go off one by one. We continued playing with everyone until all of their parents came to pick them up and of course, before that, we had to take a group photo and cut the cake too! By the way, our unicorn cake was from Prima Deli and I think it didn't just look pretty but tasted delicious too. Yummy!
To the dear friends, thanks for your wonderful presence and lovely gifts and we honestly hope you loved not just the party favours but everything we did at the party. I'm sure the big girl made some fond memories at this simple yet fun-filled party and she will remember it for a long, long time.
To the younger sister and brother, thank you for showing Da Jie with so much love on her special day too! She loves you to the moon and back and we know you both adore her very much too.
To our darling Angel, happy turning 10 and we hope you know how much Papa and Mama love you. We can't be prouder of you and as you turn a decade old, we look forward to what the future brings for you. No matter what happens or how old you get, you will always be the sweet, beautiful baby girl that we love so, so much.
May you always believe in unicorns, never lose that sparkle in you, bring magic wherever you go and follow your dreams in life. We love you, dear Angel, and here's wishing you a HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY!
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Read more on Angel's birthday parties here:
Angel is 9 - The Case of Angel's 9th Birthday
Angel is 8 - It's a Sylvanian Tea Party
Angel is 7 - A Royal Princess Party
Angel is 6 - Sofia the First Birthday Bash
Angel is 5 - Let's Get Tangled with Rapunzel
Angel is 4 - Viva La Fiesta with Dora and Friends
Angel is 3 - My Bubbly Bunny
Angel is 2 - Oh Toodles, it's a Disney Party
Angel is 1 - It's a RAINBOW Party
