Ms. Naughty and Ms. Nice

Allson and Allison's Wonderpets + Hi-5 Partey 2012

This year was the easiest, most hassle-free, budget-friendly birthday preparation i ever had for the kids.

I got two 8" round cakes from Cakes and Memories (fellow moms from the South knew for sure how terrible this bakeshop's customer service was-- [past tense, ok?], nevertheless, i  got my cakes from them. the frugal mommy i am. their moist chocolate caramel cakes are superb, i just can't resist it!)
An 8" round cake would be enough to cover my kids' blowcakes. I got 2 of them. They won't be the star of the event anyway as we were holding the celeb at a play place. The kids might just ignore the cakes.

I got about 2 dozen balloons prepped for their mini party. Was expecting around 20 kiddie guests-- that's about 9 from allison's class (they're 19 in class  but i thought only nearly half would make it to Rob), 3 brats from the neighborhood, a nephew, and 6 officemate kids.

The initial plan was to get 2 cakes from C&M and order a giant pizza from, where else??? Pizza Hut of course! :D But Pizza Hut Robinson's Place Dasma and eve SM Dasma is not serving the giant one anymore. So I crossed it out from my planner. Will have to get trays of pasta from a friend then. Oh, jeez. this reminds me of Hannah. I miss her. :) Moving on, the plans weren't realized as I was very busy a few days before the kids' celebration. I was not even able to print out a peg for Allson's Wonderpets cake. I just gave the C&M staff a cutout of the wonderpets logo so they can make a gumpaste that would look like it.
Bought 3 boxes of Country Style crazy squares, logs and twists, 2 cases of C2, some candies and gums, and 2 dozens of non-woven mini bags (for the looties). Did an Art Attack for some Hi-5 hands, Jupjup artsys, and WOnderpets logos from spare construction paper we have at the office. Tagged some facebook friends on an e-invite, printed out a few invitations for Allison's classmates and the neighborhood kids, and texted my closest friends and relatives. This would do, I guess.

Come after shift, November 13, rushed from the office to the bakeshop to pick up the cakes.

Allson's Wonderpets Cake was very plain and dull. I even had a slight argument with the staff on how the gumpaste logo turned out to be. They didn't make a blue border for the red W on the yellow gumpaste. It didn't look like Wonderpets'! So we bought some candy-coated chocolates (mini Nips, to be specific), opened about 14 packets to collect blue candy-coats to complete the blue border for the Wonderpets logo. Added dots of red and yellow candies over the little cake, and voila! My efforts brought some life to the little blowcake!

Allison's Hi-5 cake was topperless. I was sleepless for several days contemplating on what to do with it. It has to resemble at least a bit of the Hi-5 theme. That morning, I thought of borrowing Tita Ginny's picture stand (a piece I have commissioned JenClaymaster to make for Ginny on her 27th birthday) as it resembles some color as the base cake I've ordered. Didn't realize it can do the trick. Here's what happened:

Not bad, uh?

Now we move on to the party. There was no program or anything. We just let the kids rule the floor. Set a Hi-5 and Wonderpets dvd playing at the background, and there you go...

The three hours were well-spent. It was a fantastic way to celebrate my kids birthdays, with this age range.

I told you, it was hassle-free.

Here's Allson's Tarp--

The Loot Bag Contents (Gums and Candies)--

 

The Invites-- 

Oh, let me share with you the peso powers. You won't believe it!

Action Station 3hour exclusivity-- 4,500 powers
8" Round Cakes from Cakes and Memories @485ea-- 970 powers
24 balloons on stick @13ea-- 312 powers

Mushroom Pasta Trays (serves 30) -- 700 powers
Country Style Doughnuts disc @20ea-- 720 powers
C2 Solo x 2cases @7.75/bottle-- 372 powers
Candies and Gums-- 500 powers
Non-woven bags @12ea--  288 powers
Allson's 3x4 tarpaulin-- 180 powers
Invites @4.75ea-- 114 powers

What have I not included? Oh, the gas to and fro, mobile phone talktime, and miscellaneous ones... :)

Party Preps 2012!

Some party ideas for my dearest little coocoo boy:

And Ate Allison who's turning Hi-5!:

Preparing for Baby#3 :)

We are expecting another bundle of joy to arrive in about 4 weeks.  So far, I am doing the online shopping stuff for frugal buys.

So far, here's what we have for the layette:


And the gears we have as of this blog's  posting:

• Ashworthy Stroller (Kuya Allson's pre-loved)
• Jolly Playpen (Kuya Allson's pre-loved)

And here's what I am hunting for online now:

Gerber GentleFlow Feeding Bottles 8oz, 3's

My Kids' Ties, Tutus and Stache Bash

Wheeew! Finally! It's over!

We had a very simple event for my kiddos' birthdays as we celebrate Allison's 4th and Allson's 1st birthday.  I'd like to thank everybody who attended the birthday bash--


Mom
Ate Irish
Kuya Terry
Tita Nids & Hubby
Tita Marlyn & Andre
Tata & Joshua
Maricel & Kim
Lala & Denise
Jep & Ginny
Jiro & Yana (and their yaya)


I knew it. This would be a very small event. We made a reservation for 50pax. And never realized that only 18 guests could make it. That's 12 adults and 6 kids. :( My boss and colleagues were absent. Bad! But that's okay. I just felt like a loser though. But again, that's okay...

With 6 kid guests (with a 1-year old kidlet), I should not have rented a clown then. But of course, since everybody was booked before the event, I had no choice but to push through with everything.

I had a lot of DIY stuff done for my kids' celebration. Like my kids' outfits:

These cute tutus for the little girl guests:

Necktie shirts for the little boys:

Mustache sticks for everybody:

I even DIYed the cupcakes:

and the Cupcake Stand:

I also made the layout for their invites:

And the envelopes of course:


And have commissioned the services of these suppliers:

Pizza Hut- for the party venue

Pixels 2 Prints- for the pre-celeb pictorials

 and event coverage

Ties, Tutus and Staches Bash Part 1

Ties, Tutus and Staches Bash Part 2

Ties, Tutus and Staches Bash Part 3

Cakes and Memories- for Allson's cake

Mylene's Party Needs- for the Clowns

No Tricks, All Treats Trick or Treating Day Call Off :(

I came home from work at around eight o' clock in the morning.  Did the last run for the petticoats I am scheduled to deliver in the afternoon.  I haven't slept yet since yesterday as I was held with gazillions of unexpected errands.  I was quite exhausted but I had to finish everything I was set to do for the day.

After the petticoat job, I made a little witch hat for Allison to suit her posh and sophisticated witch outfit I sewed two nights ago. I got ourselves ready-- bathed the kids, prepared the bags, packed the dresses for delivery, etc.

We arrived at Robinson's Place Dasmariñas a quarter past noon.  The manong dropped us off the Governor's Drive entrance and we noticed a ton of people waiting outside.  We moved to the Aguinaldo Highway entrance, and saw the same scene.  We heard people talking about an ongoing robbery inside the mall, in a money changer near the supermarket.  We were barred from entering the establishment then.  After an hour, we decided to call off the day's plan and move to SM Dasma instead to book Pizza Hut for the kids' birthday.

We headed to Pizza Hut and had a hearty meal.  Some cream of mushroom, spaghetti carbonara, fried chicken, pizza and caesar salad.  We finalized the kids' party schedule and set off.

 

That was the day for my dearest Allson and Allison.  They were not able to trick or treat @ the Rob Place because of that heist.  Allison was so ready with her get up pa naman...:(

We were back home before three in the afternoon.  I just changed bags and left again to deliver the dresses and the fitting form to Carmona and from there, went straight to the office without rest.

Poor me :( LOL

My Kids' Trick or Treat Attires

The practical and resourceful mommy that I am :)

I wanted my kids to have the best costume they could have this coming halloween but of course, we have some budget constraints here as their big bash is upcoming.

For Allson, I had:

• some scrap fur material @ 40pesos/kilogram from a factory in Batangas (his entire costume consumed only about 350grams of fur. )

For Allison, I bought:

• 5 yards of black soft tulle @100pesos
• elastic @20pesos
• black shades @35pesos
• black pantyhose @30pesos
• tiara @150pesos
• black shoes @150pesos

14 October 2011. Tutu All Done Day

Had prepared some stuff for the party since last week.

I bought a few yards of soft tulle @20pesos per yard from Diviland:

Today, I plan to finish all the tutu work. So far, here's what we have:

 

 

Here are the tutus we'll be giving out for their birthday:

 

And the one she'll be wearing on the Big Day:

 I have about 12 tutus done. Hmmmm.... 18 more to go!

And tomorrow, I'll start with the neckties naman. Good luck, Lalai! You can do that!


Xoxo,

Yourself LOL

13 October 2011. Cake Supplier Search

I have been reading a lot of online forums and blogs in search for the best suppliers for my kids' birthday bash. I am almost done with the list and this day was allotted for our search for a cake supplier.

I got in touch with a few suppliers in the past couple of months--

• Karen Alvarez of A Bag of Goodies
• Cakes and Memories
• TJ's Bakeshop
• Jeng Abua of Twin Angels

And visited a few bakeshops--

• Aggy's @Festival Super Mall Alabang
• (our hometown's) Balayong- no joke! I've commissioned them to make celebration cakes for my cousins and niece's birthdays for more than thrice and they never failed to deliver
• Baker's Fair @Star Mall Alabang
• Goldilocks @Walter Mart Dasma
• Red Ribbon @SM Dasma

Can't decide yet...:(

I browsed on older pictures of our older celebration cakes and here's what I got hold of:

Loreen Allison's First Week-- chocolate pound cake in fondant:

Loreen Allison's Christening Cake by Goldilocks-- Care Bears moist chocolate cake in boiled icing:

Loreen Allison's First Birthday Cakes by Goldilocks (c/o Pizza Hut)-- moist chocolate cake with chocolate chips and customized Girls R' Us Cake by Red Ribbon:

Loreen Allison's 2nd Birthday Cake by Red Ribbon-- moist chocolate cake in boiled icing. The cake's name was Little John, I asked RR to replace the topper with a little girl figurine and I added 2 Blue clips, trying hard to fit into our Blue's Clues theme:

Lola's 65th Birthday Cake (DIY :)-- 2 layer chocolate cake in butter icing) Did the 65 topper while I was on coffee break at the office:

 

Loreen Allison's 3rd Birthday Cupcakes by her dad (we didn't plan to hold a party and buy a cake but a sudden burst came and we decided to hold a small one in our front yard and barely had 40minutes to make the cupcakes so the boiled icing was stubborn and sloppy. Excuses... excuses...):

Allson Lorenzo's Christening Cake by Red Ribbon-- chocolate cake in boiled icing, they didn't allow me to customize the colors so I had a little bout with the RR staff in ATC:

Ate Mariel's 11th Birthday Cake by Balayong Bakery (which I ordered a day before)--- moist chocolate cake with fudge filling and chocolate chips in boiled icing :

Four weeks and 2 days to go... Oh, Papa God.... Please help me decide now...:))

Xoxo,

Lalai

New Party Inspirations

I was thinking of having a ties, tutus and staches themed party now. And here are my new inspirations:

A little man themed cake for Coocoo boy:

And some cute parafernalia:

I was just done doing Allison's tutu last weekend and even made some spare tutus for my bff's daughter and the girls. I could perhaps post a pic soon.

Xoxo,

Lalai

11 July 2011. Cake Inquiries

Today, I will be contacting every known cake supplier in town. This is what I have in my right now:

Or:

I'll start with:

A Bag of Goodis
Aggy's
Cakes and Memories
Conching's
Kitchen Krafts
Marta's
Me and My Sweets
TJ's Cakes

Who else???


Xoxo,

Lalai

09 July 2011. Party Planning Way Way Advance...

I want two cute blow cakes for our kiddos. And I am torn between them:

I am now in contact with Cakes and Memories.  Here we go C&M or A Bag of Goodies?....