Saturday, September 09, 2006

Oliver's 1st Birthday - The Party!

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Today Oliver had a party to celebrate his birthday (which was yesterday). The party was the culmination of a week of hard work by Hayley and today was no exception. She did all the cooking herself, aided by Sara to produce the vegetarian chilli and by Dawn who baked the potatoes. I made the salad!

Oliver spent the morning with his friend Isabel so he wasn't under our feet (literally) - thanks Clare and David for baby sitting!

About 15 of Oliver's little friends turned up with one or both of their parents, so it was quite a wild little party! We held it at the Heaton Moor Methodist Church hall (so no booze!) which was a great space for the kids to play and the adults to chat.

Although Hayley, Sara and I seemed to be in and out of the kitchen a lot, we still managed to enjoy the party ourselves.

Half way through proceedings we presented Oliver with a Thomas the Tank Engine cake (with one candle, of course) and evceryone sang Happy Birthday to him. He seemed a bit bemused by the whole thing. Judge for yourself by viewing the video below.


He was quite clingy with me at times. He had fun playing with his friends some of the time. Other times he would wander off and explore the room. But often he was happy for Dad's Taxi service to carry him around the room.

By the end of the afternoon the mountain of food was all devoured and people were asking Hayley to arrange parties for them, incredulous that she had arranged it all while handling a difficult house sale and packing to fly away on holiday the next day.

There are some more pictures from the day here.