The Halloween Party

October means one thing... making cute decorations for Halloween! Last year, Poppy had only just started crawling and cruising so it was all about taking a photo of her in a cute outfit. This year she is now a toddler and albeit the attention span is still too short to have organised games and activities (her time will come!) we still had to have a party!

Halloween was obviously the theme and the paper decorations were out and about in their full glory details, I love it and yet again, Halloween in our house started in August!  At this age you want them to look fun rather than scary. So keeping it light, I made a variation of different buntings.

Happy Halloween Pumpkins 

Paper Ghost Garland

Pumpkins, Cats and Frankensteins Bunting

I also made a selection of toilet roll pumpkins and Frankensteins.

Wrapped Toilet Roll Pumpkin

Toilet Roll Frankenstein

These were a very cheap and easy option of ghosts cups. I have lots of LED tea lights left over from my wedding a couple of years ago.  They didn't work that great in the day time.. but by night they were really effective.

Plastic Cup Ghosts

Most of the food I made is quite self-explanatory.  But I was very keen to keep all the food healthy for the kids and to treat the mums that came along we let ourselves have a bit of indulgence in lovely cupcakes (you can see that my piping is coming along a bit now!)  I printed out some free printables to make the cupcake toppers which I thought went well with the theme!

Mini Baby Bell Eyeballs

Spider Cucumber and Sultana Sandwiches

Pumpkin Satsumas and Grapes

Homemade Shortbread Ghosts and Ghouls

Free Printable Cupcake Toppers

The one activities I did organise went down really well (with the mums!) and it also gave them something to take home along with their goodie bags.  As much as I love to go overboard with decorations and creating a party scene, I'm also aware that the kids are much more interested in playing with the toys, so their goodie bags (a pumpkin face stuck to an envelope) included some bubbles and a footprint card.  Also I don't want to set the bar to high.. as much as I love what I do for Poppy (and myself!)  I don't want to spend a fortune where in my opinion its not necessary!

Pumpkin Party Bags

Quick and Easy Toddler Friendly Activity

Chris and our little Gruffalo!

Happy Halloween!

My First Public Meltdown

I should actually re-phase the title to include my darling daughter's name, because yet it was not me that went limp each time she was picked up, only to lay flat on the floor in the middle of my sacred John Lewis acting like the world was coming to an end.

So my time had come.

Finding shoes so far is not straight forward for Poppy.  We skip pass the pretty shoes on display and head straight for the practical ones.  Poppy has wide, high instep and turned in feet.  (Which I hope the latter will eventually straighten out naturally).  So choosing shoes is vital to give her support to ensure she can walk and run well.

Finding shoes takes time and like most one year olds, her short attention span can be hardwork.  So Poppy decided enough was enough and no more shoes were going to be tested.  Que the huge meltdown, running off, legs and arms flapping all over the place.  Then finally the full on tantrum.  Terrible twos!? What a load of banana sticks - starts at one!

To be honest I was pleased with how I dealt with it, surprisingly I didn't get as stressed as I thought I would.  I was more concerned that the shop assistant was telling me that Poppy had no hope in hell in getting any shoes.  Trying to strain my ears to hear the assistant telling me this over Poppy and her woes, I could see the sweat starting to drip on her forehead as she struggled to cope with a child giving it some in the shop and trying to tell the mother that her child would be forever shoeless.

Trying to strap a tantruming child back into the pram is another issue all together, so swiftly moving on we were out of there.  Within seconds of  leaving I could hear the soft tones of 'choo choo' and I could tell already that the mood had lifted and I had my girl back.  Even if she was shoeless.

Two days later I'm back in a new shoe shop round the corner with hubby in tow for support and we walk out within half an hour with two new pairs of shoes and a pair of wellingtons!  Not too sure when and how the next one will arupt.... But like every mummy.. I will fight through it!

Hair Raising Poppy!