Ebi-kun's 4th Birthday Party

Ebi-kun doesn't actually turn four until tomorrow but we had his party on Sunday at the local park. I was praying the weather would be good and luckily the sun gods smiled on us. Ebi-kun wanted a football theme (soccer) but I wanted to do robots, it was his birthday we we eneded up with footballs.

Last year I made him a three t-shirt so I decided to make a 4 one this year but keeping in with the footie theme (I have blurred his name on the picture but his name is sewn on too)

We got to the park early to bagsie a good space under the trees and used footie bunting to claim it as ours! I just printed out large footballs onto printer paper and cut them out with my Fiskars tool. Punch holes in the top and that was it, easy.

I opted for paper plates and cups this time, we usually take plastic so they can be washed but as a one off we did it the disposable way, to jazz them up we stuck footballs to the cups.

I found some big inflatable footie balls in the ¥100 shop, which we perfect for playing in the wading pool with.

We did it as a potluck picnic, we took sandwiches, mini sausages with the team shirts on picks

and cheese and pineapple with football picks (again just printed off the computer)

We kept it pretty much low key, it was a really hot day and the kids were happiest playing in the water, the only thing I organised was a football pinata. I like the concept of pinata's, I don't like the idea of letting kids loose with a big stick and encouraging them to hit things. So I made a football pinata instead, I did this last year and it went down well. We started off with each kid having a couple of kicks, kicking to the next child, so that the little ones got a go too, then we let them loose with it.

There were a few fouls and it ended up with Seiyu with his foot stuck in the ball, very amusing!

Then the kids scrabbled to get the goodies, bubbles, sweeties, balls and pencils.

To round off we, we finished with a football cake* of course. It was a plain sponge with green butter icing and green shredded coconut for grass, luckily he was 4 which meant each of the goal posts were candles and the players...well I looked everywhere to find players, even considered buying a game off e-bay until I saw the shipping would be 70 pound. Then I remembered I had these little wooden pieces, which I had bought for a completely different project. So I sat and painted them all, we actually have a full team in both colours, I have made it up into a game but he hasn't opened it yet, I will share later. There are white lines marked on the cake but you can't really see them.

The cake went down well, everyone seemed to have a great time, Ebi-kun especially, thank you to all his friends and family for helping to make his day a special one.

*When I was making the cake, I planned to slice the sponge through the middle and add a jam layer but of of the sponges had stuck to the pan and crumbled somewhat. I said to Ebi-kun, I don't think I can put jam in it, it will have to be a plain cake, his eyes filled up and he said,

"I don't want a plane, I want a football cake" LOL.

I over estimated the amount of shredded coconut so if anyone has any bright ideas on what to do with a load of green coconut please let me know!