The easiest party ever that did not break the bank.

Somehow affordable and easy does not go hand in hand in where children's' parties are concerned. I think if you have a nice big garden and a pool and all your kids have summer birthdays you may just have the jackpot. If not, you are always looking at not too expensive ways to have the party of your kids' dreams.

The boys were very clear about their wishes this year. It had to be Bounce Inc , L wanted a Pinata and C insisted on an ice cream cake. And that was about it. They could not agree on a theme so I suggested we just have none or use Bounce on the cake. But booking a party at Bounce is expensive and their extras are very excessively priced so we decided to just go and jump and have the party part at home. I also explained that if we go for Bounce they will have to limit their friends to suit our budget - which they both agreed to without issues. For C it was easy as it was exactly the number of his tight little circle. L is sort of everybodys buddy so he had to choose but amazingly anough settled on his friends and stuck to them. (and yes, every one of them play circket with him- he is rather cricket mad). BTW - book online for Bounce for more than 10 kids and you get a discount.

It worked so well. We took all the boys (apart from one whose father brought him) with us (and the help of one of my mom friends and our au pair). I bought them each a bottle of water at Bounce that we marked and kept at a central place and they had HUGE fun! Apart from our kids and A's BFF that went along the rest have never been there so it was a total hit. I had cool drinks and crisps in the car in a cooler so when we left they each had a snack in the car. When we got home I notified the parents on the Whatsapp group. We did the candles and singing and ice cream cake and then they hit the pinatas. And just about then the parents picked the kids up. A few moms stayed behind and watched the rugby with us - which was quite social and fun.

It was such an easy party - I just had a few paper packs to put their Pinata takings in and that was about it. I actually felt as if there was no party happening...

We also made the pinatas ourselves after seeing it at a party earlier the year. It is easy, fast, the kids helped and worked well. This is how we did it:

Buy a Chinese lantern - these are really cheap I payed R24  -and push in the support to fill it out to a ball.

Cut a bit of cardboad and secure lightly with sellotape to the bottom hole

Now cover the lantern carefully with packaging tape - be aware that once you have stuck a bit you can not remove it again. We used nice patterned ones from Builders warehouse- we had rather big lanterns and I only had one roll each - two rolls would have been better and more sturdy but this worked well enough. If you want to spend time you can do the same with layers of paper mache.

Up at the top you can see the completed ones. Add sweets etc in the top and hang up for the fun to begin. They took quite a few hits before they started leaking little sweets.

The kids loved the party - several of the boys apparently now want Bounce parties and there was really no need for more eats/sweets or time to play. Without a doubt our easiest party ever.