Yesterday was a beautiful day. Luckily, as we were off to a friends’ house for a birthday and christening celebration…outdoor dos are kind of essential when you’ve got any number of children coming round, so it’s alway a bit of a panic beforehand when you see the weather and are just hoping it’ll be dry.
But the gods were with them, and brought glorious weather for a lovely sunny afternoon in the garden. Like ours, it’s paddocks and lots of open space, so perfect for a big garden party. It meant a few Pimms (lush, love Pimms as it’s just indicates summer in the UK), some lovely food, and great time chatting to friends while the children were able to run round playing.
N had a blast. He spent most of the drive there announcing ‘we’re going to party’ to his dad. Once we arrived he was happy just pottering round on his own, but also loved following anything his cousin was doing. He was very taken with the various balance bikes – loving the diddy pink one which was a bit small, but could still cope with the larger one, and it was good practice for getting back to his own one.
He had a good run around on the trampoline, even attempted a go on the bouncy castle and loved the climbing frame, slide and double swing.
Having a 2 year old running loose amongst hundreds of people isn’t the easiest as you don’t want to hover, but when you all of a sudden lose sight of them, you do worry even though there’s not many places they could go (well, down the lane in this case – it was quite a large garden to potentially lose him in). It’ll be great in a year or so when I can relax a bit more and chat to friends without having to wander off and check he hasn’t fallen off a climbing frame or walked in front of someone swinging.
Hints for a good garden party
So after yesterday’s great party, if we ever have a similar afternoon do, I shall be taking on board some of what they provided:
- Great weather…hmm, a bit out of your hands, but fingers crossed.
- Plenty of things for children to do: yesterday N did some cupcake decorating (and eating), there were plenty of toys in the garden (helpful if you’ve got children of different ages, otherwise borrow, borrow, borrow).
- Lots of nice food. The simplest but often most delicious thing is getting in someone to do a pig or beef roast. Just meat with rolls and then some salad always goes down well. If I’d been organising, I’d have likely just stuck to that for the children as well (because N eats anything), but they’d done goody bags for the kids as well that they could choose from.
I did get worried at one point that N was going to destroy the baby swing. He noticed it and wanted to climb in. My telling him he was too big and heavy wasn’t going to stop him, so he managed to climb into it from underneath, twist round to sit. Of course, his feet were then touching the ground so he should have just listened to me!
What are your essentials for a garden party?
8 Comments
What a fabulous garden for a party :0) I’d love a bigger garden for the kids to play in. One day. Looks like you had lots of lovely sunshine too. Fabulous
Definitely v lucky with the weather. Their garden was amazing – and although massive with lots of grassy area, they did have a proper ‘garden’ plant area. That’s what we’re still missing with ours – it’s still definitely like a paddock!
Wish we had a garden to do a party!!! Sounds like it was great fun. Good weather, good food and good friends…Awesome!
It was brilliant. Much more OTT with hundreds of people for an informal party, but even simple dos outside seem so much fun. And great for involving the children too
I think you’ve covered all the essentials! We were fortunate to have great weather for our Greek Easter celebrations, and the rest fell into place with organisation and a lot of help. Your photos show what a lovely party it was and how much fun N had. Thanks for coming over and sharing with Country Kids.
Does make such a difference with good weather. Although they had a marquee yesterday, there wouldn’t have been room for all the children to run around.
Wow that looks like a very child-friendly party! We were at a Christening (followed by garden party) yesterday too – the weather was perfect, wasn’t it?
It was beautiful weather…they were v lucky with it. I did catch the sun on my face though, but thankfully I had put on lotion so not too badly.