The fairies at the bottom of the garden

or

"The in no way over photographed and excessively detailed account of Bea's 4th birthday party."

Invitations

The fairies at the bottom of the garden are quite fond of Beatrice, so they decided to have a party to celebrate her 4th birthday.  So they wrote to her friends and asked that they rsvp by Pixie dust (included).  I think one or two little guests were somewhat disappointed when they sprinkled their pixie dust and couldn't fly.  As fairy writing is very tiny, they included a magnifying glass.

Decorations

Bunting.  

Need I say any more?......No. I thought not.

Fairy houses.

Over the last few days of the summer holidays, I drew about 12 of these fairy houses which Bea and I coloured in and painted.  Then she cut them out.  Then I cut them out properly.

Balloon

Just in case anyone was in any doubt...

Flower fairies

When I asked Bea what kind of birthday party she would like she immediately decided on a fairy party.   Every year we've got all of her party pieces from "Party Pieces" so I looked at their website.  I'd priced all the Tinkerbell bits, but sighed as I did so because I thought the Flower Fairy plates were so pretty.  In my head I was counselling "if Bea wanted a fairy party for her 8th birthday, I bet she'd pick this stuff".  Just to check I showed her all the fairy plates.  Guess what she choose?  Hooray, she resembles me in party plate choice if not in looks!  So we bought the Flower Fairy plates plus their "happy birthday" and cut out fairies.  Beatrice also made some paper fairies from an activity book, so we put them up too.

Little private spaces

Last year, Andrea bought Bea a pop up fairy tent, so we used that and her wigwam, which has a fairy floor as little chill out spaces.  Beatrice had the inspired idea of putting her fairy books (that girl can run with a theme) into the wigwam, incase anybody just wanted to be quiet and read.

Pixie Hollow

Beatrice loves taking her fairy figures into the garden and giving them an airing beneath the apple tree.  It helps that there is a little door in the base of the tree with a sign that says "Shhh, pixie sleeping", so we set them up incase anyone wanted to play in the mud.

What did we do?

Jen & Jo's Fairy Fashion House and Beauty Parlour

I employed (who am I kidding, no money changed hands...I conscriped) Jenny and Joanna's talents.  When the little ladies arrived they were given wings and a wand (if they hadn't brought their own) and could choose their eyeshadow and lipgloss colour, have their nails painted, choose one (or 6 tattoos) and have glitter sprayed onto their hair.

The boys declined the lip gloss, glitter, eyeshadow and fairy tattoos, but did choose some of the more masculine tattoos.

Seth's first ever tattoo

Fairy Phoebe

Beatrice insisted on wearing her party dress, despite having a number of fairy costumes to choose from!

Being Flower Fairies

As we all know, each fairy has a talent.  Rosetta's for example is looking after flowers.  One of Beatrice's favourite pastimes is putting flowers in whatever vase she can get her hands on.  So we prettied up some tin cans and the girls (and Joshua) filled them with flowers.

One book is never enough!

The Tooth Fairy Disaster!

Unfortunately, as she was flying over the garden, the toothfairy was hit by a catapult flung by a naughty boy.  She spilt all her coins over the garden.  Every child could collect three and swap them for a little treat.  The girls got bling rings and fairy necklaces plus a bracelet for their mum (I had ordered these from ebay and they were far too big for little wrists...plus I thought it a good opportunity for little ladies to practice generosity) and the boys just got to choose presents. 

Before the game began however, some little people, not mentioning any names (Caleb and Ellie) had collected all the coins.  Caleb really just repositioned his large collection, but Ellie, whose outfit came with a little purse began to jingle.

Catching the sunlight

Iridessa is the light fairy, and in her honour, we coloured in sun catchers.

Being Tinkers

Tinkerbell makes stuff.  It's in her name you know.  So we tinkered too and decorated little silver heart boxes to keep our bling in.

Rainbow ribbons

Double sided sticky tape is like honey to little girls.  Ribbon is like honey to me.  So we stuck different coloured ribbons to a little piece of card to make a rainbow wristband to dance with.  We didn't actually dance though...the oven dinged and we had food instead.

Magical Unicorn

Beatrice is obsessed with "magical unicorns".  So I was a little worried that she would be devastated when it was smashed.  But she would have no other piñata.

Thankfully, she didn't seem to mind the gruesome carnage.  I think she was lost in the scrum for silly plastic toys.

The Bouncy Castle

I could have called this "Flying school".  Yes, the little fairies and their male friends bounced.  

                    Bea also used the opportunity to demonstrate that Zachary is still number one.

The choke hold of affection.

We did have a professional on standby to give flying lessons should they be required.

Max Strong doesn't need a superhero costume, but he totally rocks it!

The Beary Fairy

The bear with added wings, bling, a wand and medals was on hand to distribute prizes when they were required.

Almost everyone won one for sticking the horn on the unicorn.  I am unconvinced by the blindfolding success of the paper mask!

Food

Friday was spent baking.  It was a joy.  I used my K beater.  It made me VERY happy

Chocolate buns and plain buns?  Regular icing or buttercream?

Edible Toadstools.

The birthday girl demanded jelly.

Fruit wands

Cara's Chocolate Cake

It was Cara's 6th birthday... she likes cake, chocolate and colour.  So this is a chocolate cake, with chocolate buttercream iced in melted Galaxy chocolate with smarties on top.

Yes...I did make green icing.

Pretty fairy cups

Paparazzi

I find, it is always important to have at least five professional photographers on hand at any party.  Here are two of them....

 Party bags

I made Beatrice colour in a picture to fairy up the white paper bags we used as party bags.  After a week of this...we decided only girls would really like a fairy picture on their bag!

Plus we made our own bubble labels and kit kat wrappers*

*I lied about the kit kat wrappers, I bought them on ebay ;)

Adventure

Beatrice and I decided to have an adventure today.  

ad·ven·ture

[ad-ven-cher] 

noun- an exciting or very unusual experience.participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises: the spirit of adventure.a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.

Without doubt it was both exciting and unusual and Bea certainly did take part, but was it a bold undertaking?  Was the outcome uncertain?

Well we had discovered that Alex from Cbeebies was hosting the Teddy Bear's Picnic in Legg Park today and we thought it might just be an adventure to journey down to meet him.  However, the weather was somewhat unseasonable...and by that I mean the rain was making you doubly wet as it bounced off the ground to soak you on the way up if it happened to miss you on the way down.  The chance of being hit by Noah's ark enroute was the risk involved (I only say that because I am convinced it has been raining continuously for the past 40 days).

When we arrived at Legg Park it was empty, completely empty.  We acknowledged that this was the uncertain outcome and so we amended our plan and headed into the castle.  Bea was slightly disappointed but ready to roll with the punches and have fun despite the fact that the array of teeny celebrities she was hoping to spot had been replaced with fiberglass historic models.  I was in the process of handing over our admission fee when I chanced to ask the assistant if she knew why the Teddy Bear's Picnic had been cancelled.  She informed us that it had just relocated to the Civic Centre.  

We sploshed in that direction very cheerily.  The hazardous weather was no issue for us in our summer raincoats and wellies.  As we arrived, there was Alex from cBeebies and Mr Topper with their two giant teddy bears singing songs and playing games with a room full of littles.

Meet Bertie Bear

"Drink banana, drink, drink banana"

For forty minutes we laughed, danced and sang the drink banana song.  Then Alex, Mr Topper and the Teddy Bears disappeared, promising to return in an hour.  We hastily utilised satellite technology to inform others of this new, dry location (removing the hazard of venturing out in the inclement) and bought some lunch.  As we waited on our grub, Bea was able to ride the vintage carousel, have a balloon flower modelled for her and dance with Peppa Pig, Mickey Mouse, Minnie, Goofy and Fireman Sam.  We also had a chance to review our photos...this is my favourite....

 

Bea's new bff

...and look at Bea's latest addition to her Disney autograph book which says "To Princess Beatrice, Thanks for having fun today, Love Alex"  We also discovered that four weeks ago he got his own little Bea. 

Then the Strongs and the Gastons arrived and the show resumed.  This time they got to learn "agado" and take part in the Teddy Bear Parade.  The mayor of Carrickfergus judged the host of teddys before him and decreed that Max's monkey was the most colourful.  The presentation of a Teletubby lunch box to Max resulted in the colourful monkey being abandoned with Molly and the lunchbox continuing the parade.

Dancing the conga

Now if you are not already jealous, I'll just add that there were also bouncy castles and face painters there...oh yes, and it was free.  Merci Carrickfergus Borough Council.

Now go, and have your own adventures!