It only rained lightly this year as we celebrated our Disney party side at our sixth Disney Birthday Party in six years. We’ve had Disney Pixar’s “Up!“, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Peter Pan, Frozen, Woody’s Wild West and now…. Maui. Not Moana, although she’s officially Mommy’s favourite [Not a] Princess ever – but Maui. From the moment he burst onto the screen, the boys were hooked. We were playing his song in the car, watching the DVD on repeat and I was applying temporary tattoos faster than I could blink. He’s become the boys’ hero despite his initial cheeky naughtiness in the film – and as soon as they had “real” fishhooks from Disney [the makeshift coathanger hooks they made got a bit scary for Mommy], there were a hundred cries of “CHEE-HOO” from the trampoline as our own mini-Mauis leapt through the air, shape-shifting in their little minds.
This Disney party was SO good. It couldn’t have been looking more unlucky if we’d decided to celebrate on Friday 13th though – looking back it was like a comedy of errors. Firstly, I managed to accidentally plan it for the final day of the exact week when we were lucky enough to have a little holiday, and so we had to cut our trip a day short – and then my hired help [read: Mom and Dad] were unable to come as Grandad got so poorly. On the morning of the party whilst setting up by myself, I got all confused over the tables for the celebration and wasted about an hour in panic whilst steadily raising my blood pressure far higher than it needed to be, and…..I also managed to forget the birthday cake. Daddy came to the rescue thankfully!
Luckily it all turned out fine in the end, and with the weather only letting the rainclouds have a little drizzle on the day compared to our usual outdoor celebrations [the worst being the torrential day-long downpour for Hero’s second birthday BBQ at the beach] and the boys all had an amazing time. We even came away with a little more of a sunkiss on our skins!
The party favours this year were a mix of useful items – we bought little Moana and Maui drawstring bags for every guest, the kind that you use for PE kits, and gave everyone a plastic coconut tree drink bottle which were loved by everyone! Every time I saw a tree bottle I kept hearing “Consider the Coconut!” in my head [that song is my favourite]. There were lots and lots of Swizzels sweeties thanks to the lovely people at Swizzels Matlow who are celebrating 50 years of Drumsticks – which were perfect and kept making the boys giggle as they’re called “Drumstick” which is what Maui calls Hei-Hei in the film if you’re not already completely immersed in the world of Moana and Friends. There was a three tiered pick and mix of their sweeties which held mini figures of Hei-Hei and Pua peeping over the side, and a tray of little sweetie cones I’d made up – and I made little grass skirts from some of the sweetie jars with drumsticks popped into them. It was our most popular stand ever with the little ones – even more so with the naughty parents who seemed to like standing right next to it.
On the menu this year were Krispie treats decorated with bamboo straws and plumeria, white chocolate and sprinkle dipped marshmallows on sticks, pizza, chicken strips [poor Hei-Hei], sausage rolls, salad, pretzels and chocolate chip cookies, brownies for Hero, “Boat Snacks” – Maltesers, Disney Heart of Tefiti cereals, Cadbury Nibbles and Krave [a bit like puppy chow mix] in Disney Party Maui cups, Ocean swirl cupcakes with nore plumeria flowers, and the main attraction – Moana and Maui cookies and Kakamora and Maui cake pops. You can see them all in our little video!
Around the party garden, the boys were practically bursting to see their Disney friends come to life – Huge Maui figures, Baby Moana from the Animators’ Collection with her Sandy Toes and teeny turtle, and a cuddly plush Pua and crazy looking Hei-Hei were sitting happily on the tables which I decorated with fresh tropical leaves from our local flower market at 4am that morning. The lunch tables were decorated with orange and yellow daisy heads, leaves and a tablecloth woven from coconut fibres! We stayed as authentic and true to the island as possible, using bamboo plates and little plates made from leaves which were sewn together cleverly. We couldn’t not have Moana plates too, and Maui cups, and balloons…and Moana on her canoe sailing down the dining table! Our sweet little birthday cake was served to our guests with shrieks of delight from little people who wanted to save their plate and napkin “FOREVER”. It was so lovely seeing them all so happy.
Entertainment wise, there is NOTHING better than wide open space when you’re little – and when you’re a grown up too. The big people all relaxed together in the huge Scouting field whilst the little people ran safe and free, and bounced down and over huge inflatables from Ross at our trusty bouncy castle party favourites, BounceBiz, who arrive every year on time and have never, ever let us down. If you see a castle, slide or pool on our blog, we’ve hired it from them. They’re brilliant [and haven’t paid me to say that, haha]. Every parent came to say how relaxed the party was – I laughed when one of the moms told me that she usually can’t run fast enough after dropping her son off at a party, but she had stayed at ours for the whole three hours, and loved it!
So here are the memories of our boys’ party – and we made a little video of our Disney Party too! We’re really getting into videos now so we hope you enjoy it. Before finishing we also want to say a HUGE thank you to Disney Party for sending us so many fun Moana things for our party [we just bought nearly everything Star Wars for Gav’s birthday from there, and when they heard we were celebrating they were so kind to the boys! See if you can spot us in the gallery of Star Wars Disney Party Moments!] Also a huge, squishy thank you to Swizzels Matlow for the hundreds of sweeties they kindly sent us to celebrate our boys’ special day!
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