four | Tinker Bell party

      

Impressions… often significant days leave us with them, a feeling, an image, a snapshot that sums up how we will remember times in our lives. My own 4th birthday party in the early 80′s left  a very simple but strong impression…  A sunny day at Sydney’s Bronte park… my mum holding a container of cupcakes with smarties on top & I am handing them out one at a time to my little friends. Followed by the memory of attempting the monkey bars & falling to the ground ( I possibly should have just stuck with the cupcake serving).

For Ava’s 4th birthday, she asked for a Tinker Bell party. I thought it would be nice to celebrate with something that reperesents what she finds magical at this age. I was able to keep it quite simple by just ordering a few Tinker Bell party things & rather than asking anyone to dress-up, I organised some green wings, wands & pirate hats for our little guests to be given at the party. We had afternoon tea at the park with pass the parcel, swings & musical freeze. We didn’t organise the food until the morning of the party & the mushrooms for the tinker bells to sit on were an on the spot decision.. Ava asked to help spread the icing & I said ‘yes’ because to be honest I prefer cupcakes that don’t have perfect icing & it’s important to just let kids help if they ask to. The memory of her & I making the cupcakes together is now more important than if I had said no because I wanted them to be perfect. The big surprise for Ava was the Tinker Bell cake which she didn’t see until we brought it out to sing happy birthday. The impressions that will stay with me from this day are of the girls running around & calling out “let’s fly to fairy land!!”… the joyful play… the spinning… the dancing… the smiles… the sheer belief that imagining you can fly is just as good as actually flying.