Smashing celebrations?!

We've had a big day here, celebrating Vaughan's birthday.

Birthday aside, it was a normal Monday.  After a celebratory pikelet breakfast and some speedy gift-giving, we packed our birthday boy off to school - and then set about finalising the party preparations.

Everything clicked into place smoothly and we were ready when our guests arrived - hooray!

The children all enjoyed some organised games - pass the parcel, musical chairs and a ladybird/bug variation of pin the tail on the donkey.

The borrowed jumping castle was a hit and so was the piñata (hah)!

Monsieur B Bug suffered some dents and tears but held up much better than anticipated, even under repeated (and energetic) assault.

He eventually cracked along his base-line and gave up his booty reluctantly, after some surgical intervention (as we were concerned further whacking might damage his innards). On inspection, some of his fillings didn't survive as well as we might have hoped but that didn't detract too much from the fun of smashing him!

Most importantly, at bedtime our new-nine-year-old declared the day "excellent" - and of course that's how a birthday should be!