On 20 August, my son turned 3.  It was a time when he quite understand the meaning of birthdays so we decided that we would give him a big party.  We had in mind to invite most of the friends our family personally know - both adults and children. I had sent out the invites via email two months in advance and planned the party over the following weeks to avoid the last minute rush.

Some of the great places to get birthday stuff were Spotlight, The Warehouse, $2 shops and even Safeway supermarket.  With the ample time I had, I was able to window shop at many places, especially on my son's childcare days.  I bought some really cool birthday-themed disposable cutlery and serviettes at Safeway and they were on more than 50% discount.  Great stuff! At Spotlight, there was a wide variety of cutlery of different themes such as Cars, Dora the Explorer, Barbie, Thomas the Tank..etc but they were really expensive.  I was glad to find 50 cents loot bags, plastic table sheet, lovely candles, birthday banner etc on clearance sale!  They were birthday-themed and yet beautiful enough.  What a great saving!  The Warehouse was a great place to buy presents for the children's games.  They have colouring books, colour pencils, crayons, Transformers toys, Hotwheel cars...etc..

It was a most excellent thing to have friends who extended their help with putting this party together.  Two of them with the flair in decor came the day before the party to put up balloons, banner and streamers.  Another came to help with food preparation - cutting up corns, pumpkin, sweet potatoes and wrapping up with foil for baking the next day.  And another who came with a digital SLR to help capture candid moments.  As the host, it is impossible to do that and it was fantastic having a helpful cameraman.  On the actual day, some friends helped with the actual cooking as well while everybody just got to know everybody! The atmosphere was wonderful.

Food list? Parties usually have really unhealthy foods but it does not have to be if we were to do it ourselves - baked corn, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, quality fish fingers are great for both the very young and old - chicken bbq chops and pork chops marinated overnight were great and easy to prepare.  Sausages are great easy food too!  Fruits are always a great choice! Rockmelons, oranges, pineapples and grapes.  I think it is a great idea to trim the cleaned grapes into tiny bunches before the party.  It makes it easier for guests to eat and this does not damage the grapes.  Guests just need to take the tiny bunches instead of trying to pluck them off the main big bunches themselves.  Fried noodles with sliced marinated chicken breasts, choy sum, fish cake, sliced champignons, onions and oyster sauce is fast, easy to prepare and yummy.  That serves as a main meal too.  Cuttlefish and Prawn balls are popular with everybody.  Just deep fry them.  Wiped out in a minute!  Of course, we had all sort of lollies and chocolate bars and potato chips.  Rock Deli was cool!  Healthier choice as the brand promotes - baked not fried - using sunflower oil.

Well, for the cake, I know there are very expensive ones out there.  We just got one blackforest torte from The Cheesecake shop and paid a little extra to put a car image on it.  Our son is currently a car fanatic.  He was so pleased to see the Ford Falcon on the cake! www.cheesecakeshop.com

And for the games, I surfed the net for some.  Wow, it was not easy to find games for young ones such as 2 or 3 as they have limited understanding about games.  It was wonderful that the mums who came helped out the younger ones during the games.  Passing the parcel, Treasure hunt for lollies, Shrinking Island, Pinning the Donkey's Tail were all successful!  However, I did a car instead of a donkey so the children could pin a wheel instead of a tail.  Just needed some coloured paper to do them.  Getting the pressies wrapped up early, indicating gender and age on them were really helpful.  You wouldnt want to give a 2-year-old something he doesnt know how to use or eat yet.  And you wouldnt want to give a 7-year-old something too kiddo that he/she doesnt need anymore.  Delegating a gamesperson before the party to do the games was a great idea too.  As for music for the games, the library was a great place to get them.  The adults were a wonderful audience laughing their hearts out watching the children play their games.

We started the party at noon and it lasted for 3 hours as we planned.  Everything went as smoothly as was planned.  Planning and shopping in advance certainly was a good decision.  And delegation and getting help were important too.  The guests had a good time and our family had a wonderful time as well.  It was a party everybody enjoyed.