Which reminds me I promised this yesterday. The Ultimate Thread of my Child's Ridiculous Birthday Parties

Before you read and judge me or yourself please note I freaking LOVE planning parties, baking cakes and making bunting. It is ENTIRELY MY THING

Also. I never had a birthday party as a kid and I decided when my kid was born I was gonna be one of those moms who does stuff at all the holidays so yeah I have also been known to decorate my house for Valentines and created a longstanding Easter Bunny ritual

I'll do them in reverse, so this is last years... The PRANK Party

The invites were the old severed finger in a matchbox trick. I made loads of disgusting looking food like edible dog biscuits

And delightful looking food like these chocolate truffles that ended up being sprouts inside

Undrinkable drinks

Those were full of vegetables. SIKE https://twitter.com/charltaylorpage/status/1173893006417702912

Poop cupcakes. Weirdly left untouched

For activities we played pizza roulette (one slice had anchovies on it - obvs some of the weird kids liked it anyway!), truth or dare and I made these surprise boxes... https://twitter.com/charltaylorpage/status/1173907751401115648

And then the party bags which were just to make me laugh. One kid cried

So that was Ten

When he turned nine he said he just wanted to have some mates round and play video games. So I invited them on a quest

I basically threw together some Minecraft references and then tried indoctrinating them into videogames of my childhood

Again, I mostly just made myself laugh

They mostly just played video games but also I got them to make Minecraft pixelated masks and also these push-up piranha plants that I loved

And then we had grassblock cake. Which ended up being like four layers to make it cube shaped. I later found a headless Stampy down the back of the sofa

That was nine this is eight

The NerfDay Party. The invites were rolled up to look like giant Nerf darts

The kids were assigned team colours, dog tags, eye protection and camo paint along with their weapons (fun fact I bought 500 darts for this party)

I set up shooting ranges and an obstacle course and they played capture the flag and tug of war and mostly just shot each other a lot

We also had giant darts made of pool noodles I sliced and taped up but I can't find any pics of those.

I made a swiss roll Nerf dart cake (which turned the kid's tongues blue) and packets of sweets for favours

When he was seven we had a Harry Potter party, which I nicknamed Pothead Turns Seven and no one else appreciated.
* I feel a bit weird posting this now cos JKR but I also cobbled together everything myself and she did not get a penny so idk if that makes it more palatable(?)

The invites were Hogwarts letters, I made wax seals and delivered them by owl post

(It takes fucking ages to hand draw onto balloons and not smudge them but this was a labour of love)

I had planned to somehow do a game of Quidditch in the park so I made these with hula hoops and superglued some feathers to a ping pong ball but it rained torrentially so we had to scrap that idea

When the kids arrived they had to walk through the barrier to Platform 9 3/4, then I'd covered the stairs with the Hogwarts portraits (Dumbledore snoozing in his frame, signed photos of Lockhart... a Loki bc none of the Salazar Slytherin fanart looked like I pictured him)

The kids picked their wands (twigs with hot glue and marbles), then they put the Sorting Hat on and picked their houses. They had clip on ties for their houses but everyone wanted to be Gryffindor so it fell a bit flat. The dining table was set up with floating flickering candles

Every Flavour Beans, Pepper Imps, Cockroach Clusters, Liquorice Wands, Acid Pops, Fizzing Whizzbees, Sherbert Lemons, Ice Mice and Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. Non alcoholic Butterbeer. Also (Freddo) Chocolate Frogs and Cauldron Cakes (which were upsidedown Tunnocks Teacakes)

I got very into the details and was a bit sad to put the house back to normal after

The favours were snitches I'd caught. I also dressed as a snitch. Because I am a bit over the top, don't know if you noticed yet?

The cake was probably my favourite to have made possibly ever. Thank you Rubeus Hagrid for your cack-handed and easy to replicate frosting technique

(Laughing at the fact that this has taken an HOUR so far)

Continuing with terrible puns this was Vinnie's Sith Birthday

Literally anything can be made into a lightsaber if you stick it on a skewer. They had star shaped sandwiches and Wookie Cookies that were gingerbread men I iced and covered in chocolate sprinkles

The kids made lightsabers out of pool noodles and tape. They then used the sabers to bash the thirty silver paper lanterns I had hung up as decoration. There was a football pinata I'd painted to look like a Death Star that didn't survive long enough to take a photo

Lots of the kids dressed up. Yes me too. But we had Yoda and Leia headbands they could make if they didn't have a costume

I tried to make a really simple cake for the party cos due to scheduling stuff there was also...

The birthday was like two months before Force Awakens was released so all the shops had merchandise and I found thirty SW Pez dispensers in the poundshop for favours and I think that was the most I spent on any on thing

For his present that year we went to Comicon for the first time. This guy did the 'aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper line' and it was possibly the most excited my kid has ever been

When he turned five my kid decided he wanted a... carrot themed party. This one is a little sparse on the details because well, carrots aren't a theme

I hand rolled those carrots out of icing. If your kid is weird and requests a carrot party it is important to note that they sell little chocolate carrots in Sainsburys baking section. No one told me

His fifth birthday was also his first day ever of school so I made thirty of those little fuckers. The next year they banned class birthday treats thank god

All the food was served in plant pots. The cake was carrot cake. Turns out my kid doesn't even like carrot cake

They year before was the TMNT party. We had moved to London like two days before so it was the most basic party I have ever thrown. The kids all wore masks. I made a full set of ninja turtle weapons lol

I can't find any pictures but if you want to arm your small child then:

Nunchucks can be fashioned from a kid's skipping rope, just cut the rope shorter and tie the handles back on

A poster tube makes a delightful Bo Staff

Foam swords can be repurposed as katana...

I made - and then promptly confiscated - sai from some kid's gardening forks like this. I painted a bandana around the eyes so they looked less like frogs

All the weapons can be taped up with brown griptape so they look more ninja-like. Probably also works for like larping and stuff idk

Sadly I have very few photos of the first three birthday parties because it was before I had an iphone but rest assured that the Superhero, Dinosaur and Circus parties were all equally ott especially considering that he was a literal baby at the time

Am done now. Please tell me I'm good and that you want me to be your mom because most of this effort was just unappreciated by all the kids lol and this year Vin just wants to go get pizza

This is a lie. One year I ask my kid what he wished for when he blew out his candles and he said "I wished for the best birthday ever... and it CAME TRUE" and it's all worth it then ennit