Natalia's Alfresco First Birthday Party

Natalia is one! So of course we had a party to celebrate. I have very happy memories of birthday parties held at home when I was a child – my fifth birthday party with a toadstool house cake and dressing up clothes in the garden, my seventh birthday party with a Native American-theme and party invitations wrapped around arrows and a giant homemade paper teepee – if Pinterest had been around in the eighties, people would definitely have been pinning my Mum’s party crafting and decorations, is all I can say.

I made a garland of ribbon streamers and balloons to drape all the way round the garden:

And paper pompoms to decorate the hall:

And we hired some virulently coloured soft play equipment so the guests could wrestle each other safely. It was a lovely sunny day so we set everything up in the garden.

I made trifle! Two trifles in fact. I’ve never made trifle before but nothing says “hey, you made it through the first year (again)!” like layers of sponge, jelly, fruit, custard and cream topped with sprinkles.

We had fairy cakes beautifully decorated by toddlers:

And a giant four layer chocolate cake (of course):

I was very proud of this cake.

And it’s obviously very important to have a tall, dark, handsome man in a Superdry t-shirt on hand to carry the cake around for you.

There were gorgeous pink roses:

And millions of sausages cooked on the braai and tomato ketchup and mustard and homemade pizza and crisps and rolls and hummus and salad and breadsticks and jelly and party rings and chocolate fingers but I didn’t get any pictures of these because the buffet table got swarmed immediately by a pack of ravenous toddlers.

It was a very happy day. “I see all my peoples!” said Eva.

The aftermath in the playroom (not that bad really, considering we had 47 people of varying ages in the house!). “Wowee, enormous balloons!” said a small guest upon arrival.

Thank you so much to all Natalia and Eva’s friends for coming to help us celebrate!