Louisa's party and final farewell

Before I even know it, the party was over. Compared to past parties, this one was so fuss/stress-free and easy. It had to since Louise was in charge of preparing the food, Emma bought all the decorations and I got ready the party bags. As it is the Bank Holiday weekend (Monday's a holiday), alot of their classmates are away on holiday and hence couldn't attend the party. Altogether, there were 18 guests (including our own children). Due to getting the house ready for the handover, I was left with little time to put together the cake. But still, I had lots of fun arranging the flowers and writing the wordings on the cake. Adrian drove Louise and some stuff over to the party venue and came back telling me she had a small cake. I didn't think much of it until I put the cake between the other two. Like Adrian had said, ours was too 夸张. I felt a little embarrassed if I may be honest. My rationale behind this cake - 1) I'd always created something special for the girls' parties so since I bought the cake off the shelf this time, I thought of decorating it to make it unique; 2) the head of the bear is for the guests to bring home while the body's for the adults and lastly, 3) to simply have the head looks a bit boring, dull and small so I thought of adding another cake as the body and 4 cupcakes as the paws. Then I thought, hmm, too brown and since it's an animal/jungle theme, I'll put some leaves and flowers around the cake to tie in with the theme. So I went to the market this morning and bought a mixed bouquet (a bargain at less than £3).

It was good that we mummies didn't have to come up with games to entertain the kids. They just played on the giant bouncy obstacle castle (it was enormous and I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the whole thing, duh!). But I wonder if they got bored towards the end because Louisa and one of her friends sure did (so was Lavigne)! Unlike last year, my brother-in-law and his girlfriend played basketball instead of playing games with the children. We mummies chatted and took pictures. What a change! I've not been taking pictures for quite sometime and today's photos turn out pretty bad.

After an hour of running, dashing and bouncing, the guests were taken to another hall for food cum cake cutting session. While we divide up the cakes to be packed inside the goodie bags, the children went outside to play with bubbles. Poor Thomas had a bottle of bubble solution poured over his head. Louise tried in vain to use a napkin to clean his hair but it got lathered up instead. It was hilarious!

Thomas' monkey cake

Robert's castle cake

Louisa's teddy bear cake

(Can you believe Robert(L) has just turned 6??)

Then, parents started arriving to pick their children up. Clearing and packing was easy too since there were so many pairs of hands. We soon bade our farewells and returned back to our old house to clear the last bits. The girls kept saying they didn't want to sleep in the old house which we assured them we wouldn't. Emily and Gerald came by with yummy Indian and Chinese takeaways. I have to agree with Gerald that our old and new houses are poles apart. The old one is, well, literally very old and certain things are falling apart. The new one had been refurbished recently so everything's new, nice and clean. It is strange but true that I don't feel good when I'm in the old house. But whenever I step into our new home, my mood is lifted. It is like you feel right in certain houses and not at some others if you know what I mean.

So it's a final goodbye to the old place in Surrey which the girls and I are glad to leave. That house didn't bring us much happiness, on the contrary, plenty of misery. You are right that we are very happy in our new home and may we continue to be.

*More pictures later.