Shirley's Party Advice Part 7 - how did they all get so big...

[stealthsquiggle]

Part 7 - link to previous one to follow!

Oh, and Blathers is running, I expect - she usually is

Ahhh so glad dd liked it all. Really want to see the pics!

My dd1 dressed in a chefs hat, painted on tash and apron. She got a big cool bag and went to all her friends saying "pizza delivery". They loved them. I got a few funny looks about the invites and a bit of "too much time on my hands". Bah humbug!!

My friend visited today who lives near my inlaws so shes taken the aprons over for printing and posted niece/nephews pizza boxes. Ive printed out characters/names for each party bag so just need to stick them on(thank you). I need to make up the boxes for the choc pizzas and start thinking about the cake.

How did you do yours..tell me how you did it and what you'd do different. Most ive seen are left as cake crumb edges etc but i saw a great one that was iced in fondant and painted so looked more breadlike than sponge cake.

Yeah, I was probably running. I've had friends force feeding me cake today as I obviously need the calories apparently!

The pizza invites look amazing DW. You are so going to outdo my pizza party even without tip!

I made my pizza cake with plain cake edges and I think it looked fine. I made the cake in a huge cake tin that I had from when I did our wedding cake so that it was wide and shallow and I think the natural golden-ness of the sponge made a very believe-able pizza crust. The tomato sauce was cream cheese frosting with red food dye, the cheese was grated yellow roll-out and then I made mushrooms, green peppers and pepperoni - remember the fruit leather debacle?

I am trying to remember how I did pizza cake - it was made in a tearing rush for DB2. I know I used a 12" deep tin (but not a deep cake) and I dithered about which side to ice. I definitely left the edges uniced, which could be a problem if you need it to last. I do remember that it took ages and a selection of colours to get the right shade for the sauce (I was using a jar of passata for colour matching). I put fruit winders through the pasta machine when DH wasn't looking to make salami and made olives from black fondant. I used grated white chocolate for the cheese and grilled it a bit to melt it (it did end up looking a bit curdled - I think it would have worked better with shaved rather than grated chocolate)

Oooh tips indeed. Okay remind me of the fruit leather debacle. I like the look when their melted a bit but i darent grill a cake. If i remember rightly blathers tou thiught your yellow gratings were too yellow so bunged white choc on?

So what if i melted white choc, added a teeny weeny bit of yellow and chilled it back down to grate. Could i drizzle some over to achievw the melted look without grilling a cake?

*you thought

I know I put white choc and yellow icing on at first and then removed most of one or the other. Can't remember which one though!

I went everywhere looking for fruit leather don't you remember? I ended up in Holland and Barratt and it looked ace in the end. I cut it into little circles and it looked very believably like pepperoni

Sod it im gonna do a practice run i think. If the great british bake off can practise all week im sure i can do a dummy run pizza cake.

It's not like it takes tons lots of cake like rainbow cakes

Grill the practice cake. Do it. Do it.

And you say it doesnt take loads of cakes but remember i was the one that ended up with a million failed rainbow cakes lol

Im obviously getting to the professionalky offended today. I just did the school run and one of the invitee mums said " do you not think all that was a bit errrm well you know?"

no what?

"A bit ...well OTT for a party invite?"

I said oh see thats how we do parties im afraid! Be afraid lady be very afraid you may have years of my OTT efforts.

LOL. I am almost immune to those comments (and the "don't you have anything better to do with your time?" ones) now.

I said yes yes i know but i have no job do i? and grinned at her.

Best not mention how i dressed the baby as pascal the chameleon or did a lantern release..

Bah, she's just jealous because her 10 for £1 from Tesco invites get lost in the sea of mediocre party invites on the playground whereas no child is ever going to forget having a jelly pizza invite delivered by a friend dressed as a chef.

I need to up my game with these pirate ones now don't I?

Ideas please?

Even worse...she thrust her freebie wacky warehouse printout at me. Ive seen some foil helium ballons reduced to 1.75 from 4.99 giant pizza slices!! Im bloody getting them. They be better than pizza express ones wont they. Stick that in your humbug pipe n smoke it mardy lady!!

Right blathers...you need to do the message in a bottle i think...delivered by a pirate...i cant think how you could wash it ashore to them.

Even better 1.25!

Theres a woman in town who does cheap cards etc i winder if she'd fill them for me save me buying helium?

Or in a bottle of sand or something so they have to actually find the hidden message and maybe a choc coin or two. ahoy matey you found the treasure. follow this map on this day to get more..and draw a map of your street etc. An evian bottle - drop the bits it, fill with playsand jobs a good'n.

Where are you finding bargain helium balloons ?

LOL at you raising the bar with fancy delivery methods. One of the advantages of whole class parties is that there is no need to be subtle about delivering invitations - they went into school and teachers/TAs put them into book bags (and, apparently, this year, the whole class discussed what these mysterious parcels with their "fragile" labels could be ).

I had an uncharacteristically efficient 10 minutes on the way to the airport so bags are on their way to you, DW, and I have enough asthma drugs to keep me alive for a while.

...and I have just (at the airport now) viewed and ordered DD's school pictures. I was thinking that I wouldn't be getting any this year based on the fact that I was away so she went in looking pretty scruffy, and apparently no one even told her to pull her socks up but they didn't put the best ones on the leaflet and they did in fact get some with characteristic cheeky grin and no scruffy hairdo or falling down socks visible, so I have been suckered again. At least you can buy the jpegs and rights rather than just overpriced prints.

Blathers I thought you had already settled on messages in bottles for invitations?

Ohhh im so jealous of your school photos. Mine was poor and dh says we have to get it!

I got balloons on amazon dont worry they prob arrive as mini ones and bite me in the arse!!

Ive been to parents evening and im gutted. Dd1 reads beautifully, at home she reads the oxford tree level 4 which is about level 5 at school(green i think?) shes been bringing pink band 0 books home so i asked when i can expect the two, home and school to be closer aligned(last night she was reading a julia donaldson book in bed to herself).

The teacher says she didnt realise dd can read. That she clams up and wont speak etc. i'd already approached the school nurse saying i was worried as she is incredibly anxious rather than shy. I told the teacher she gets angry at the "baby" books school give her. She wont read to dh or her grandparents either so i dont know why im so crushed or surprised. But ive done so much phonics work with her i know she could breeze the yr1 phonics test even now yet they think she cant read. They only do group reading and questioning her shes revealed she wont read in front of a group.

I dont know what i can do. Shes so desperatly anxious about doing maths or reading in front of anyone other than me and her skills are being lost underneath it all.

It's her first school photo - I think you have to get it, come what may . These people are new - they are venture-style photos and they take about 30 of each child as far as I can see - then put them all on a website and just give you a code so that you can go and choose and spend far more than you meant to I will text you a guest pass to last year's ones on flickr - when we got both of them together (DS was away this year)

about DD. How did the teacher react when you told her what DD can do, and how frustrated she is? If the teacher or the TA could gain her trust and get her to read to them, then I am sure they could find ways to coax her out of her shell. I don't really know what to advise, as ours have always done one on one reading with teacher/TA/other helper every day.

My phone just died. Your photos are lovely!! But that could just be the gorgeous kids!

I'm so upset with the school. The teacher said she suspected she could read because her writing is great. I asked about 1:1 reading and they said no it's all groups and that's it. I asked Dd about it and she says she doesn't want to read in front of everyone, six kids and her teacher in the group. She asked to read in her room tonight and I taped her behind the door. She's so good reading most sight words and occasionally sounding out. She read the words "thought" and "whispering" and I could cry. The teacher is saying she can't read. I'm not bothered about the reading bands because she's reading so well at home and luckily I use the letters and sounds pack to guide her phonics etc and read with her loads so even if nothing changed I know I'm keeping her skills alive.

But that's not the point is it. The teacher suggested what if she reads a story to a child that can't read? Would that help. I don't know what to do. My heart says let her find her own voice and leave her alone but my head says the school should be addressing her confidence issues not leaving her floundering because she's too shy to read aloud in a group!!

I was but would it look OK in a plastic bottle? I can't afford to go out and buy nice glass ones.

I've tried the map but our estate doesn't really translate very well into pirate map. It's too long and thin. It's hard to get all of the details I need on too (date, time, address) without looking odd. I could either make up a map or just write a pirate note I guess. I've got DH downloading a good pirate font and I'll rip the edges and toast them in the oven to make them look old then roll them and tie them with string. Will that be enough without the bottles?

I think you have to keep pushing them to intervene, TBH, but it's hard. They will no doubt say that it doesn't matter (yet) because she is not falling behind, but if she gives up on school it will be hard to get her back, IYSWIM.

Would she read to another child, do you think? Will she read to DD2 - if so, she might expand it to another child that can't read? My DD was the opposite - one of her friends in nursery told her mother that minisquiggle could read really well - she couldn't, at all, but she would look at the pictures and make up the story with such confidence that the other child believed that she was reading it

Blathers - I have a little skull and crossbone mould (about 3cm across) - you could borrow that and make little fimo skulls to tie on to the pirate notes?

I share your reservations about plastic bottles, TBH.

how many would you need?