Kaitlin's Third Birthday - Part One

Kaitlin's third birthday was a month ago and I'm finally getting around to blogging about it! This year, Kaitlin was super excited about her birthday. Like excited to the point that she was looking forward to it about slightly more than a month ahead.

Well I got to admit, her looking forward to her birthday makes it all that more fun and at the same time pretty stressful.

As with every other year that I tell myself that I need to start early (6 months, then I procrastinate to 3 months), I eventually only start like a month before her birthday. Needless to say, I'm asking for trouble. It was a mad rush again and I almost gave up when Kaitlin had a fever a week before her birthday D:

We settled on her birthday theme pretty early! Like..a few months before. I gave her options, and okay luh to be honest I might have influenced her a tad bit in the final decision, but I did ask her repeated times if she was sure. Along the way though, she would get interested in other stuff like Disney Princesses and Frozen and would want to change the theme.

Eventually though, we stuck with the MY LITTLE PONY THEME!

Let me just say first that if you intend to have a My Little Pony theme, do think twice. Here's why:
1. It's quite hard to find My Little Pony items in Singapore
2. Pony/horse/unicorn (not My Little Pony) items for treat bags or decor are also hard to find
3.  If you are having a party or treat bags to give to kids of both genders, it might be a problem and you may need an alternative

With the above said, I spent so much time trying to find suitable items for the treat bags. In fact I think I spent more time than I should have. I browsed online sites and went to shops like Daiso, Spotlight, SKP, Smiggle and party shops around the Bugis area. The party shops at Bugis are my yearly go-to place to get party items at affordable prices. 

When I finally settled on the items for the treat bags, I decided it would be a good idea to get Kaitlin involved in packing the treat bags!

She was more than excited to pack the treat bags for her classmates and couldn't wait to get started. I found it a great way to spend our afternoon together, and it gave her a sense of involvement.

Here are some of the items in the treat bags:

We also added in stickers/paper balls/bubbles at random which have not been pictured. I got those three items along with the stencil rulers from the party shops at Bugis. As you can see I got different bags for her classmates. The girls in her class got the My Little Pony treat bags and to play it safe, the boys got a simple blue treat bag each as I wasn't able to find any other pony/horse themed bags. I played it safe as I wasn't sure if Kaitlin's male classmates and their parents would be happy if they got  a pink My Little Pony treat bag cos as we know, most people have the stereotype that girls are associated with pink and boys with blue. Afterall, I do make that gender-colour stereotype mistake every now and then.

To make the packing process a little easier for the babygirl, I decided to make an assembly line! The assembly line reminded me of my poly days where I had to pack way more treat bags for an event than for Kaitlin's birthday.

Check out my little packing assistant! The whole time she was telling me which pencil/stencil ruler she wanted to give her different classmates. I also learnt during this packing session, that Kaitlin also thinks that pink are for girls, and blue and green are for boys. It's amazing how she has formed that stereotype at such a young age. I guess it's mostly because of what we as parents and perhaps the other people around her like her teachers may have unconsciously been doing. Like I said earlier on, this is a very common stereotype but I do not think that that's not necessarily true so I took this opportunity to teach Kaitlin that while most girls may like pink (like me!) it is possible for girls to like blue or green items and vice versa for boys and that both boys and girls can have items of any colour.  To enforce my point, I got her to pack the different coloured items randomly for her classmates. 

To make the treat bags a little more personalized, I found a horse craft image online and made this DIY craft activity. If you are interested, drop me an email at beverlywoo.bw@gmail.com and I can send it you :)

I simply printed it out at a printing store at Peace Centre and got them to cut it for me and the total cost came up to only 25 cents for each kid!

Fast forward to Kaitlin's birthday..

I woke up at 6.30am to cook her her birthday brekkie! Super early but I didn't want her to skip birthday brekkie or be late for class. I decided to start a new tradition of my own - to feed her longevity noodles for breakfast. Last year was pancakes! Technically this is not a new tradition at all, but it is something new for me to do. I do remember eating traditional longevity noodles on some birthdays but it was never a yearly affair. I'm not the most traditional person either in that I don't know much of all the Chinese traditions and I'm not all that superstitious. However, I decided to do this as I felt it was no harm, and I only want to give Kaitlin my happiest blessings and wishes on her birthday. Plus, I think it's kind of cool if our family has our own traditions that we do and maybe Kaitlin will do the same for her kids too!

I was a little afraid that Kaitlin may not like the simplified version of the longevity noodles that I cooked for her..

but hey hey! Success! I was so happy and relieved. She even listened to me and took a bite of each food item before I cut it up. Usually she would want me to cut up her food into small pieces as we usually do that, but this time she co-operated without any fuss. Double yay!

After her brekkie and shower, I brought Kaitlin to school. She has her usual lessons before we popped in to her class to have her celebration.

This was her birthday cake for her school celebration! We almost couldn't celebrate Kaitlin's birthday on the actual day as her school was having a few HFMD cases but thankfully there were no new cases and we were able to proceed as planned. Phew! Yeah, we thought it was great news..till Kaitlin had a fever (not HFMD!) and we almost had to postpone it again. Thankfully, she got better in time so hip hip hooray!

Babygirl wouldn't smile for us when we first asked her to smile then when her teachers asked her to smile she did! Amazing how she listens to her teachers and not us huh! Think we might need to hire her teachers when we take photos of her next time lol.

Though Kaitlin was excited about celebrating her birthday, as usual when put in an unfamiliar situation she would be reserved. It took her quite awhile to get comfy with what was happening but thankfully there were no tears at all.

Kaitlin got to celebrate with her friends singing Happy Birthday around her and we did the usual photo taking. I want to post the pictures of Kaitlin with her classmates cos they all look so cute together but to respect the privacy of the kids and their parents, I won't be doing it.

But trust me, they were all so cute and excited and having their little conversations that my baby making hormones were raging hehe.

After Kaitlin blew the candles and cut her cake, she served the cake to her friends and teachers. I had bought paper plates from Daiso that had cartoon characters on them and Kaitlin had wanted one of them. Later on when there weren't enough paper plates and the teachers gave us plain ones Kaitlin did the sweetest thing and gave the plate she wanted to her teacher and settled for the plain plate. I'm not sure if she preferred the plain plate over the cartoon one, or was being nice. Whatever it was, I thought it was good of her to not be fussy over the plates.

By the time Kaitlin was done giving out the cake, most of her friends were done eating and it was her turn to enjoy her cake! Another milestone as this little girl wouldn't eat cake just a year ago on her birthday, and now look at her nomming the cake away.

After all that cake eating, her classmates sat around in a circle and babygirl gave out the treat bags to her friends. It was so adorbs seeing the kids all excited looking into their treat bags! We brought babygirl out for dim sum after the birthday celebration at school cos this girl loves her buns!

Since Daddy Li had class that evening, babygirl and I headed out for dinner at Dempsey where she got to have some pizza!

I'll blog soon about how Kaitlin celebrated her birthday with the world's greatest Godparents :D