We're going to party like it's 8 years before you were born.

We had a great time. We are quite good at celebrating, I think. There were moments where I felt like I could happily kill some people, and vowed never to have a kids party in my home again, but on the whole, I'd say we all enjoyed ourselves massively, guests included. After a late nights prep where I kind of panicked about not knowing just how many people would be coming and ended up making enough cupcakes to feed the whole building, I was awoken at 5 (how apt) by the birthday girl. Lucky me to get to share in her excitement when I hadn't gone to bed until after midnight.

We'd been decorating, clearing, prepping, tidying, and all the other things you need to do. I gave a very relaxed Stevie a bag of balloons to blow up. My theory is that kids of Orla and Hamish's age are happy as long as there are balloons and music. So I went mad on the balloons too. We nearly blacked out simultaneously trying to get them all blown up. It was fun. We veered from lightheadedness into near unconsciousness many, many times until Stevie begged me to find my balloon pump. 

I left him to finish up while I got on with the finishing touches... Little did I know he had left the balloon pump lying out so when I got ready to get my modelling balloons ready the next morning, it turned out Orla had managed to break it. I could have cried. Well, not really, I was a bit annoyed at not being able to do it, but not so much that I wanted to go out and find a new pump. Hell, I was up to my eyeballs preparing the unhealthiest food kids could ever desire. 

Actually, in the 5 hours sleep I got I had a nightmare about the children having huge allergic reactions to the cake glitter. It's edible, and it looks amazing, but they do recommend that you *don't eat it*. I ignored that advice, valuing aesthetics over possible seizures, and then spent my sleeping hours in torment. 

And my little princess & my little pirate (who couldn't understand why I was making him wear his pyjama bottoms) were packed with excitement like little tightly coiled springs waiting for the party to start. Everyone arrived at once, bang on 2pm, someone gave me 30 seconds warning of their child's *severe* nut allergy  - I did mention the cake glitter *may* be made with peanut oil...but they decided to take their chances in exchange for sparkly prettiness. And no kids died or ended up in hospital, so that was good!

So we danced, played games, gave out prizes for being good, and some for those who were utterly crap, ate, sung, laughed, broke up arguments, and ran around like nutcases. What more do you want from a party, well except copious amounts of alcohol? That would have been nice.

By quarter to 4 they were creating an awesome amount of noise, and we left them to play in Orla's room. The girls mostly took to the tent and camped out, while the boys jumped, and argued, and bounced, and ran around some more. And then bang on 4pm all the parents appeared as if by magic and whisked their buzzing little kids away, and just like that, it was over.