Shirley's party advice thread part 2

[stealthsquiggle]

...can I take the liberty of starting another thread, since the other one filled up?

Really?

Does it work? DD is only 2 so we've not had much chance to test it out yet.

Right, I'm off to make a replica of my house from Gingerbread. Wish me luck!

Good Luck with the gingerbread, you nutter (of course if it goes wrong you can just deny that it is supposed to look anything like the house). I have to make a birthday cake for my mother later (birthday is tomorrow - oops).

Name combo works for me but does confuse others - I chose to revert to my full name when I went to secondary school so friends from there, uni and work know me by my full name, family call me by nickname, and DH's family call me by a different shortening which I have never used and don't much like . I do have to remember which I am when I sign cards, and the rare occasions when those communities mix can be confusing.

I am making it sound not all right at all, aren't I?! I think you need to decide whether to make a point of telling school, etc what DD wants to be known as otherwise they will default to her full name. There are, for example, 2 Isabellas in DD's class, who were called "Isabella X" and "Isabella Y" until one of their DM's went into school to point out that her Isabella was never called Isabella at home, and they now have "Bella" and "Isabella". It was because I couldn't be bothered going through the whole "it's not , it's " with every teacher that my name changed at senior school - if I had been down on the register as I would probably still be universally known by that.

Good luck with gingerbread house and your cake stealth. My mind is swimming with names now and dd is still talking to 'percie'. Im now desperate to know who's in there!!

It's going well. All walls made and looking good. The windows worked really well which I'm pleased with and I've iced all the window frames on already.

Just got to wait for it to dry a bit and then put the thing together, That'll be the point at which it all goes wrong obviously.

DS is known as his shortname and we've told school as much. DD so far seems to be longname unless it's just the 2 of us at which point I seem to shorten it occasionally. We've got almost 3 years until School starts so I guess we'll wait and see which sticks. DS was shortname from about 2 weeks old so I'm wondering if DD's longname will stick being as we've gotten to 2 years without it being shortened very often.

My name is unshortenable so I never had this issue growing up and DH's family refuse to let anyone shorten his so he only ever got it at School.

Hello everyone!

Amazing pictures Blatherskite, really like the idea of teddy bears picnic.

Shirley, did you find the ovenable pulled pork recipe? Did I miss it? Sorry to harangue on Christmas Eve Eve :)

Merry xmas party planners. Im sipping my first 'mocktail' nigellas xmas zinger.
Off to the xmas eve market. Then make a quiche and prep my veg.

Hope you all have a lovely lovely christmas. And blathers, im hoping your silence doesnt mean the gingerbread house collapsed?!

Don't panic, the house is fine, I've just been too busy with pre-christmas baking to find the time to upload pics. Even the little glass windows worked!

Happy Holidays everyone. Hope you have a lovely day tomorrow

Happy Christmas to you all! Hope you all have a wonderful day.

Just got home from a bracing walk to hand deliver last minute cards and peer at Christmas lights and trees with the boys, to find a homemade apple pie on the door step from one of our neighbours. It has been made with apples from another neighbours tree apparently. So lovely! Feeling even more full of Christmas cheer now. And, even better, both boys fell asleep on the way home and are napping.

Right, where's the bubbly?

Looking forward to seeing the photos of your amazing sounding gingerbread house after Christmas Blathers. I so don't belong on this thread, but I love seeing how talented and imaginative you lot all are!

It's been a good Christmas. I got 2 new cake tins, 2 new frying pans, a camembert baker and a hand mixer!

Hope everyone else had a good day too

Excuse me butting in - I have been advised to come here to beg ShirleyKnot's advice on party ideas for a 13 year old DD. My thread is here.

Butting in is fine :)

Can anyone do a link to part 1 of this thread please?

here

Hellllooo planners. Worst xmas ever. Had xmas day at home then off to everyones houses. Finally sat down in my own home again at 9.30pm last night. Food all stale uneaten and toys still strewn across floor from xmas day not yet played with. I was all ready for a few days at home family time, i get my date for c section in the morning but dh has been called for an interview so im going alone.

Got some great presents though, ghd's and lovely pair of boots. Gonna go back to the shop get loads of nice food in again and watch all the xmas tv i taped.

Oh DW that sucks

We had Christmas morning here then went over to PIL's where both SILs and family were and spent 2 days there just coming home to sleep.

It was fine and PILs are very gracious hosts but I really longed to just stay at home and let the children play with their new toys. They loved being with all their cousins and there were more toys there but DD missed her nap because of the excitement and then dinner because we didn't eat until 4.30 and she was just too tired by then and I spent the day not totally relaxing because I never feel quite at home there and under scrutiny.

Good news is though, I said on the way over that part of me wished we could stay home - and DH agreed! So I think next year might be our first proper Christmas at home with just the 4 of us

I've never wanted to before as I've always felt it wasn't really Christmas without lots of family but now there are 4 of us and the children are big enough to be proper individuals, it feels like the 4 of us might be enough. Plus, we were pretty much forced to have Christmas at home the year DD was born as I was only 8 days past my C-section on the day and not up to travelling with the scar and a brand new baby. My Mum, Sister and Brother came over so we had visitors and I really enjoyed planning it all. I even managed to have most of the food cooked before they arrived!

Looks like we're going to be home for New Years again this year. We were supposed to be going to my Mum's but DD has a temperature and was sick at Dinner so I think maybe taking her in the car for 2 hours and then hoping she sleeps somewhere different might not be the best plan right now.

Good luck to you and DH for your meetings tomorrow. Fingers crossed you get a good date and he gets a job :)

Do we have a thread full of party people and no New Years parties?

DD's been ill so we're staying home. I'm going to cook something and we'll watch Jools Holland until midnight. Just trying to decide between steak and dauphinois potatoes and prawn linguine...

DrsW sorry to hear you had such a disappointing Christmas. There's so much pressure for it to be perfect isn't there, but it's so often a really difficult time. Dh got d&v and so we couldn't go to my parents house as planned, but it worked out for the best as he was much better on Christmas day and we ended up having a lovely day just the four of us. It's spurred us on to stay at home just the four of us next year too. So much less stressful. it was looki g like being a v stressful day at my parents for various reasons anyway, so it was a bit of a relief not to have to go tbh. Hope your hospital appt went well and you got a date you're happy with, and your dh's interview went well.

Blathers - yes, one of us should be having a proper knees up shouldn't we?! Maybe Shirley or Stealthsquiggle are? We are staying in - no babysitter but tbh ok didn't try at all very hard to find one. I vote prawn linguine - yum! I think we'll have salmon stuffed with smoked trout and ham with a mayonnaise and caper sauce with new potatoes if i can find a small enough whole salmon - sounds much posher and more impressive than it actually is. it's actually very simple and will go well with a game of scrabble I expect! Woohoo - high life here!

Happy new year!

Shirley can I ask for help too please? Probably a question you've answered a million times but I can't find anything as on phone.

It's my dd's 13th birthday in February....she wants a sleepover for 10 . So many of her friends seem more 'mature' than her so don't want to risk anything too babyish.

Was thinking movie on the evening with popcorn and choc fountain. Any ideas on how to theme it? Make it a little more special?

And then I have the problem on what to do with them for the day? I don't want to spend a fortune but I guess with 10 of them nothing is going to be cheap?

Also ideas for cakes? I have a fab cake lady so anything is possible.

DD is very girly, loves ice skating, music, make up/face packs and such stuff ...but I guess I'm having the usual problems of having done it all already (too much too young), done the skating, cinema, bowling, make over, shopping parties.

Too tired if you can find our previous thread shirley had quite a lot of ideas for sleepovers/teen parties etc until she comes along again.

Some lovely new years meals planned. Im ashamed to say dh and i packed all the xmas stuff away today and blitzed the house. After dd's birthday, advent and xmas the house was just cluttered. So we cleared it all away and got the last of the baby stuff down. Im apparently having my baby on feb 6th!!

So, happy new year to everyone as im bound to fall asleep at 9pm. Hope everyone has a lovely time and here's to a new year with lots of parties to plan xxxxx

Thanks DW..I shall have another go.......I'm rubbish on this iPhone

tootired - I have linked to the first thread up this page where it says just 'here' and nothing else in my post!

Oooh 6th Feb! Fab - nice date 6/2/12 mathematically! Exciting!

Ooh yes 6/2/12 - 6x2=12. I loved knowing when DD was due although I had to wait a bit longer as they didn't give me my date until a week before thanks to the idiot consultant deciding that I would change my mind and have a VBAC so not actually booking me in for the ELCS I asked for and leaving me to wait for a cancellation or to have DD at 44 weeks at the next open appointment (it was very busy over Christmas) It made finding care for DS much easier. We dropped him off at PILs the night before and went out for dinner with our last night of freedom. I highly recommend it :)

I got the bits for both meals in the end but we're opting for the steak tonight. I'm doing dauphinois potatoes, garlic mushrooms, broccoli and asparagus with it. I can't wait. We'll have prawns tomorrow I think - then the diet starts! It's just going to be me and DH watching Jools Holland tonight I think. We'll be in bed at just gone midnight too. The children will be up around 7 regardless and it'll be no fun tomorrow if we're both tired and grumpy.

Good Morning everyone. I hardly touched MN over Christmas/New Year so have just had to hunt out the thread again. DW I hope you are now chilled, with clear house and room for DD to play with newly-acquired stuff? Our house got fairly well blasted for (yet more) visitors yesterday (we have clearly perfected being so bad at going to other people that they come to us!) but tree, etc still very much in place as 12th Night is a BIG deal here - in fact, I have a mini-party to plan for next Saturday - 6-7 adults and DC aged 1, 5 & 9.

OK, what was a vague thought is now crystallising into a plan. Middle-Eastern (think 3 Wise Men) themed food for 12th Night. Any brilliant ideas?