Leo Alexander turned two!

My little baby has now turned two! We celebrated by organizing a party at home. We had his grandparents over as well as his aunt and uncles, so we kept it really small but hopefully in the coming years, as he grows older and makes some more friends we will be able to invite some of his friends over too.

The theme was vintage circus and was totally inspired by the birthday card we got him. I’m no pro when it comes to organising parties and decorating (this is after all the second I’ve organised for my son!) but I do enjoy taking the time to make his day extra special. I tried to recreate the idea of a circus with very basic materials, which hardly cost anything.

I wish I could tell you that I made that beautiful cake with the elephant balancing on a ball, but I actually just sent the caterers a picture of a cake I liked and they replicated it, very successfully I might add. We ordered red velvet cake, which went perfectly with the colour scheme we had going and it also tasted great!

We used crepe paper streamers in white and red to create a circus tent above the cake table. This is really easy to do but it takes some time to fix them at the right height to the furniture with masking tape. I also had previously made some paper pompoms in vintage gold which fit perfectly. I had two placed on the cake table and two more hanging over the cake. I also made some decorative flags in white and red and had some gold balloons put up. On the cake table I got some vintage straws, which I placed in a jar and had a small elephant peg ornament inserted in an upside down cup cake liner for decoration, as well as some battery operated fairy lights. I also made a souvenir box to hold the favours (which I bought online; An adorable teddy bear book mark). I had a really nice chocolate box, which I lined with red crepe paper and fixed two straws inside it with tape as poles to hold some decorative flags, then I attached a circus ‘strong man’ peg to the front, which came with a set of circus themed pegs I bought from a craft store.

It makes me happy to be able to do something that brings a smile to my son’s face, whatever that may be and even tough he is still quite young he could tell there was something very different going on that afternoon. Apart from the constant clapping and cheering, he soon picked up the idea that those nicely wrapped objects were all his and that he could play with them as much as he liked. He was overwhelmed at one point by all the gifts but the face he made opening each present was priceless. Technically he just did the receiving, His father and I unwrapped most of his gifts for him. It is safe to say that he has never seen us, that enthusiastic and eager for him to rip paper off something. So eventually he took the queue and satisfied our expectations.

Here is a very general inventory of those gifts: Books, cars, trains, a Noah’s ark, animals and all. A piano, a set of drums, an alphabet-singing sausage dog and money. Needless to say the aftermath was a noisy symphony of the loudest, unique music instruments could make. Nonetheless it was a memorable birthday and we feel so blessed to have this little man in our lives.