Mandy is 4!

Today!

We had a small celebration with hubby's family on wednesday, and another bigger one with my family on saturday. Well, hubby's family is small, and mine is big!

We saw this flower at my mil's place. She said they only bloom at midnight. Hubby was intrigued.

When Mandy heard she was going to have a birthday party, she asked me to bring along balloons. Ha. To her, no party is complete without balloons. I gladly obliged. Well, she did not ask for a cake, did not ask for any party decorations, did not specify any themes or venue or even food. All she wanted was balloons!

 Hubby got her Swensen's ice cream cake. Custom made Toy story one. They were quite thrilled.

There were only 8 of us to share the pretty huge cake. Mandy couldn't even finish her piece while the greedy Barry kept asking for more, more, more!

Barry was so happy to sing the birthday song. He cannot sing it very well yet but very adorably nonetheless. Mandy was finally able to blow out all the candles by herself.  Still shy though. :)

(please watch the video on Youtube. I realised Barry cannot be seen half the time here)

Then came saturday.

I went early to my mum's to help out. She was preparing quite a lot of food for the party. Thanks so much mum!

Hubby brought the kids there after their very very short nap. They mucked around, playing with presents from my mum. Ukelele for Mandy and a train set for Barry. But in the end, you know... Everything is hers and everything is his.

The guests came.

Fifth aunt and Uncle Roger, thanks sooooo much for your help for setting up the fire and preparing the food! Then, for sending us home! Kam sia!

We had the bbq at a pit near my mum's block. It was my first time holding a party at a neighborhood bbq pit. The place was great. Very spacious, and my mum's place was just 5min away. 

There was also prawns, crabs, sweet potatoes, sweetcorn, salad, fried beehoon, fried nuggets and seaweed chicken and assorted balls.

Their mobile nannies (aka Felicia, Ivan and Irwin) came! That's when I got my FREEDOM! Haha.

I tied 3 balloons to the lamppost and they provided the kids with much entertainment. Ha.

You might be wondering why Mandy was wearing flip flips instead of nice dress shoes. Well. I left the kids to the hubby to dress. While I remembered to specify the clothings, I forgot to specify the shoes and hair accessories. Sigh.... Hubby said "Well, she chose the shoes herself. They're pink what!"

With my cousins there to play with the kids, I could go bbq in peace. My favourite part of a bbq party is to bbq! But I can hardly do that with 2 clingy kids. So I was very happy that night.

See how entertained they are?

Oh yes, we 'borrowed' the NTUC trolley for all our stuff. I thought that was real clever of my mum. She said she felt so paiseh to be pushing the trolley home with a single rockmelon inside. Haha.

Despite the lack of sleep, they could still run and run and run. Non-stop.

The guests eat and mix.

 I look odd as usual.

Anyway, the boy was totally stoned around 8pm. He could hardly walk! So I brought down the cake.

I had previously let the girl choose her favourite design from Bengawan Solo website. She also chose her favorite longan as the filling for the sponge. I thought the 'artist' did quite a bad job. The doggie on the right looks so weird and the handwriting was.. bad. But well, it's just a cake. The redeeming factor was that it was YUMMY!

The kids sang and clapped along with much gusto! So cute!

We tried having an all-kiddoes photo. But Wan Ting wanted out. Hehe.

After cutting the cake, Mandy was asked to make a wish. I know she totally didn't know what they were talking about. Haha.

 Then it's every kids' favorite part of the evening. Eating cake!

The relatives helped so much with the bbq-ing, cleaning up and everything. I'm so lucky to have them. Oh, and because my kids love longan and kept asking for them, a group of my cousins and aunties actually spent the whole time picking out longans from their cake to give them. So nice. My kids are so lucky too. :)

Ok. Now, I really need to go rest.