Three Birthdays, Two Parties and One Broken Bone

As you can probably guess, the title of this post sums up a somewhat chaotic weekend! In fact, May was a chaotic month from start to finish. The good kind of chaotic though, apart from the broken bones, but I’ll come onto that in a minute! Most of May was the fun kind of busy, which is why I’m a month behind on publishing this post!

The first weekend in May, played host to Bunny’s 12th birthday (and party), and Tiny and Fluffy’s 7th birthday party. The very same weekend, we were also attending another child’s birthday party too and we also had an extra little girl to look after. I’m still not quite sure how we managed to fit everything in, but SOMEHOW it all worked out.

A Grown-Up Dinner

We started the weekend off, taking Bunny out for dinner. We thought it might be nice for her to get some time with us, without her siblings. Bearing in mind her age, we also thought she’d appreciate doing something a little more “grown-up”. She’d not been to TGI Friday’s since she was very little and couldn’t remember it at all, so we headed to the one at Gloucester Quays. Bunny loved having free reign of the adult menu and got herself a mocktail too. I can’t believe how grown up she looked and it was lovely to have some time with her without the little ones continually interrupting.

We knew that at TGI Friday’s, they like to humiliate people on their birthdays by singing to them, so we pre-warned Bunny. The staff however, were sensitive to her awkward pre-teen age and instead of singing to her, they discreetly brought her a big slice of birthday cake with a candle in it. I think it was really sweet and sensitive of them to do that and she was thrilled. She found TGI’s to be a real treat and now wants to know if she can go there with friends!

Bunny’s 12th Birthday Party

After months of discussions about what Bunny wanted to do for her 12th birthday party, she suddenly changed her mind at the last minute. She wanted a birthday party at Cattle Country again. Last year we hired out the whole of Cattle Country Adventure Park and had a joint birthday party there for all three of them. This year, she had simply left it too late. However, the twins had been invited to a birthday party at Cattle Country on the same day as Bunny’s birthday. A plan was soon formed. Instead of having a full scale “party” at an age where me pre-teen wasn’t sure if parties might be a little childish, she decided to scale things down a bit. The more sophisticated pre-teen option was to simply take three friends out… to Cattle Country.

So Mike took the three little’s and I took Bunny and rounded up her friends, to head off on our afternoon out. The four older children were given a little more freedom to wander, on the condition they stayed together as a group and checked in with us every half an hour. Whilst the twins enjoyed the party they were attending with all their friends, Mike and I took Bear around the park to do all the toddler-esque activities.

I bloomin’ love Cattle Country as there’s just so much to do there. Soft play, park, drop slides, rowing boats, jumping pillows, trampolines, tractor rides and animals to pet too. The older girls all got to see 6 week old piglets, handle small animals and bottle feed baby lambs. Baby Bear ran around like a lunatic, enjoying everything the park had to offer toddlers. And the twins both returned to us as a hot, sweaty, happy mess.

The Twins 7th Birthday Party

Tiny and Fluffy chose to have a gymnastics party for their 7th birthday. We put a limit on the number of children they could invite this year, so they decided to go with just inviting the girls in their class (it seemed the fairest way). We made a traditional party buffet and let the gymnastics coaches take it from there. The two coaches at Checkers Gymnastics did an amazing job and my twins loved every second. They played a combination of games, tried some gymnastics moves and tried some trampoline moves and generally had a lovely time.

I simply didn’t have the time to bake two birthday cakes this year, so I cheated and bought one! The children didn’t seem to mind though!

A broken thumb

After the party, having done a day out the day before and prepping all the food in the morning, whilst keeping five children entertained, Mike and I were knackered. The twins friend, who we’d been looking after for the day, got picked up and went home. We knew if we were to sit down, we’d fall asleep. So our stay-awake solution, was to take the children to the park. It was a sunny day afterall.

Unfortunately, whilst we were at the park, Tiny fell off the climbing wall and landed on her thumb. She came over to us crying and we could tell with a single glance, that she’d broken it. Her thumb was pointing the wrong way!

The landlady of the pub next to the park, came out to help. She provided us with a first aid kit (ice pack and sling) and even made Tiny a burger for her dinner, as she knew we’d be in A&E quite a long time. Mike and the other kids went home and I took Tiny to A&E. Sure enough, after some waiting time and an Xray, Tiny had indeed broken her thumb. It was strapped up with adhesive bandage and I took Tiny home, feeling a little sorry for herself.

It wasn’t the best end to a lovely (albeit busy) birthday weekend for the girls, but it got Tiny out of doing any writing for a few weeks! It happened on SATS week too, so she’s managed to get a teacher scribing all her answers for her.

Next up… Baby Bear’s birthday!