Well that’s done and dusted for another year, and as of yesterday I’m the mother of a six-year-old. Although this makes me feel decrepit, I must say that this year I feel I finally ‘got’ the kids’ party thing.
We start birthdays with our traditional ‘surprise’ birthday breakfast, unveiled to Stevie Wonder’s ‘Happy Birthday’, opening presents and eating breakfast together in a souped-up dining room (helium balloons, homemade bunting etc) with our Danish birthday train candles lit (we only have four carriages, so we’re a couple of candles down for this one’s sixth. Oh well).
And then…guess what? I didn’t screw up the party! We went to Blackberry Farm and I shunned the idea of a party package, instead paying for the nine kids to get in and providing little lunch boxes for each. The farm let me hire a party room for an hour (but gave it to me for the afternoon – nice of them!).
The main reason it was relatively stress-free for me, though, was the cake. As I mentioned in my post about just some of my life/parenthood fails, cakes are not my forte. So I asked Emily from Rosehip Sussex to craft this on my behalf. Having looked through her website’s pages and the menus of beautiful vintage-styled creations she chefs up for weddings, parties and special occasions, I chose the ‘Lemonade Confetti Cake‘.
When I mentioned that my son had asked for a Ninjago cake *shudders* (how would I have managed that?!), she offered to create bespoke iced biscuits of the characters on popsicle sticks for me to stick all over the cake. I figured each would make a better going home token than a party bag. Two birds. One stone.
After Emily dropped it off, I kept the cake boxed up until it was ‘that moment’. There was a collective, audible gasp when this was unveiled. All the children started shouting which colour ninja they wanted, and my son literally couldn’t believe his eyes.
A boy tugged at my sleeve and said “that cake is TOTALLY AWE-SUM!”. The other mothers’ mouths dropped open and one whispered: “How did you make those biscuits?” But don’t worry, I didn’t try to pass it off as my own, I just gave her a wry smile and a proud little wink: “I didn’t. I OUTSOURCED IT.”
“Genius,” she replied. “Just genius.” I don’t know if she was talking about Emily’s skills (probably) or my cleverness at passing this task to someone infinitely more talented at it than me. But I’d like to think she meant both.
THE ESSENTIALS
Rosehip Sussex
Contact: Emily Wade
Tel. no: 07734 209 531
Website: rosehipsussex.co.uk
Price: I won’t tell you what the cake itself cost as I have a sneaking suspicion Emily was kind to me with it, as we are friends and knowing that I write Little Lewes. But the biscuits were £2.50 a pop, which I think is very reasonable given the time they must have taken and ingredients. Cake prices are dependent on what you’re ordering in any case.
Disclosure: No compensation, financial or otherwise, was offered or exchanged for the writing of this post (to my knowledge). It is written purely as information to those who want to wimp out of making their kids’ birthday cake just like me, but still have their child and his/her friends a) want to eat the cake and b) think they’re cool.
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Little Lewes 
KATE – this looks awesome but guttingly just one week too late for my just 5 year old who had to put up with a supermarket cake with a tub of sprinkles dumped on top as my contribution to the creation!!! Poor boy! Nevermind – there’s always next year!!!! xx