Swagger Inn (the Snug)

[SisterHelenoftheEternalCatchUp]

The snug is now expanded and open for anywenches wanting to blether away without inflicting their ramblings on the innocent participants of Telly Addicts.

Musketeer worship is still a pre-requisite to entry of course....

Oh helen that's so unfortunate, fingers crossed for you.

badders, I'm another complete baby about vomit, D & V bugs are some of the worst bits of parenting for me.

I'll look at that link later flopsy, hope you're all well in your house now?

Morning snugglers! Multiple jobs to do today including washing , hoovering, mopping and shopping. I will probably only do the shopping .

We are installing new dishwasher. I say 'we' DH is swearing at the instructions and I'm googling for something more helpful than pictograms

Awwwww...in that video..."fandom = family" ..... Awwwwwww!!

Good video flopsy!

I knows madame . I did think of sparks and the Arababy storyline at the sobbing Sherlock bit. No-one but wenches get us.

God, can you imagine how beautiful his baby would be!?

Reposting here cos this thread is probably the more appropriate place...

Please can I ask for your help wenches...My DS's 5th birthday is coming up and Im stumped for what to do. Last year we had about 8 kids in my house, traditional party stuff, sweet but a bit knackering (house is small). Seems a bit boring to to that again, or the same thing but more kids in a hired venue. ?????? His foundation class has 45 kids so no question of inviting the whole class, so we could do something smaller if we want.

Im trying to think of a theme now hes older and to make it different to last year - a magician, face painting...? Anyone done anything with their DCs that worked well and was not too expensive? Thankyaw....

We took DS and about 6/7 friends bowling last year when he was 6. They loved it. I've taken DD and friends to the cinema but girls are better at sitting still! If you want to do a home one, you could make it an early evening one and have DVDs, sweets, popcorn etc. failing that, a play barn?

Last year we took DS (for his 6th birthday) to local theme park type thing.
For his 5th he had a bunch of friends running about the local village hall chasing balloons, shrieking, playing 'parcel-parcel'(!) pin the tail, and musical statues. beecause I couldn't face having them screaming about the house. The biggest faff was getting the food ready.

It's so long since I had to arrange a party that I don't know what's the done or popular thing to do anymore.

Helen's one appeals to me.

Mine never had anything other than small parties at home as they were a bit shy at that age, so my experience is not as a host, but things that went down well:
village halls, great if you're good at organising games as there's so much room for the kids to run around, food can take a bit of organising - do you have grandparents/obliging friends on hand?
activity parties at leisure centres - bit more expensive but someone else entertains the children for you. The one's we went to let you do the catering yourselves which makes them cheaper than soft play parties.

Thanks all - reckon we'll go with doing a party in a hall type thing. He wants a Dusty cake so it may have a Planes theme. Not great for the girls but hey he had to endure a Frozen party last week...

Oh yes - the theme park thing - we let him choose a friend to take with him (so they could run about together and not bother us so much )

MrsB's idea of bouncy castle is good, but make sure you have enough height in the hall. And if I do another party (DS insists that he's having a TempleRun party this year Sodding Temple Run annual) then I will do MrsB's idea of littel food boxes as well.

Other cheap games - skittles or throwing balls at a stack of cans - theat kept them entertained for ages, but took a while to do predp. because I painted the cans to be Bad Piggies from Angry Birds

For his 4th we had half a dozen friends over to just play the garden and then they made their own party bags (glue and stickers) which did involve lots of supervision...

Ive done 2 whole class parties in halls for ds2 (but there are only 23 in his class)
Reception year was pirate theme
Last year year was HTTYD theme (I have a cake topper and cookie cutter you can borrow if your Ds likes HTTYD)
What worked...a craft table for the less confident kids/quieter ones. I printed off loads of colour in pages from the cbeebies website. Also some prit sticks and jewels/feathers to stick on.
I themed the games too so instead of pass the parcel we had pass the treasure chest.
Instead of musical chairs we had musical desert islands.
Then we did pin the patch on the pirate.
Instead of Simon says we did dragon says (I have a dragon hand puppet)
I used haribo for prizes.
We also provided coffee and tea for adults.
I also gave out a prize for best dress up too (this was optional)
Cakes - shop bought.
I kept the food basic...sandwiches, carrot batons, cherry tomatoes, popcorn on individual pots/cups, jumbo marshmallows (I did pirate flags for pirate party and viking sails for HTTYD party)
Both parties seemed to go quite well.

badders those sound like great parties!

Freecycle can be good for getting themed items if you're organised enough to ask in enough time!

Oh, and balloons...lots of balloons.
Amazing how much fun they have just playing with balloons!

We also just had a dc playing on a CD player in the background.
If you didn't wNt the cot of boxes, you can get those white paper take away bags from e bay really cheaply...in fact they could decorate their own and put their name on at the start of the party (when everyone is arriving and it's a bit manic)?

Should say at the pirate party the hall had a kitchen so we did ice cream and jelly for pudding :)
That was very popular!
For the HTTYD party I bought French sticks and made 3 different fillings and then stuck oars and sails in to make them look like viking longboats!

:)

No the baguette thing is inspired badders, not insane

the insane thing is the balloons - I hate them popping!

Right, must put the hot water on for a shower as we're going out later for dinner. At the moment I am none too clean & have bits of hay in my hair (& probably everywhere else too going by how much I smell of hay )

Have you been in the hayloft again!?

If only! I've been bagging up hay & putting up an electric fence. Don't ask. I thought at secondary school you got less involved with after-school clubs

Btw...where is obs?

Wow. Thanks loads for all the tips everyone! badders, bless, sounds like you go to a mammoth amount of effort for your kids parties!

I have to say, it is soooooo much easier (and cheaper) in spain. Invite kids and parents to park on given day. (Free, good weather guaranteed, entertainment done.) Bring picnic, beers for adults, cake, pinata. Party bags in the pinata. Done.

Ah well! Beyond that, there were few pluses tbh.