Last weekend, Ava finally celebrated her sixth birthday party with a few friends from her class. We had decided on a flower theme, which we thought would be cute for a bunch of 6-year-olds. It ended up being a lovely sunny day, and the flower party theme was so good (and so easy!).

I always like to organise our children’s birthday parties around a simple theme — it makes it easier for me to come up with ideas for activities and decoration. Then, depending on the time I have, I prepare the party. This year, I didn’t have much time at all, so I kept the preparation of the party to a minimum!

Flowers are always easily available in the Netherlands. So on the morning of the party we stopped at our corner flower stall and got a massive amount of flowers. We also got edible flowers from the market to decorate the cake. I made sure I had thin wire in the house, a wire cutter, and enough masking tape — plus I got some extra bottles of tomato sauce from the supermarket (I usually save good glass bottles anyway — I use them for jam making, canning, or storing things). Then I made the birthday cake, and that was it for party preparations!

First thing I started doing when Ava’s little guests arrived, is to make them all a flower crown. (I had never made a flower crown in my life before, so it was a bit of a risk, but they turned out really lovely and were so fun and quite easy to make!) In the meantime, the children gave Ava their gifts, had a drink, and started to decorate glass bottles and jars with masking tape. By the time they were done with those tasks, they all had their flower crown.

The cake looked spectacular with the edible flowers on top! I also had found some flower chocolates and candy in the supermarket as an extra treat. Tamar had also sprinkled rose petals over the cordial, which I thought was such a good detail.

After a dance session led by Sara, we had one last activity — flower shop! The children could all assemble little bouquets from the flowers I got that morning, to put in the vase they had decorated before, and which, of course, they could take home.

It was such a lovely party! The next day in the classroom, I did spot a few flower crowns… and the vases with flowers still look so lovely on our window sill.

xxx Esther