The biggest Jelly Baby recently turned 7 and he decided he wanted to celebrate by heading to our local ten pin bowling centre with a gaggle of his buddies. I have always gone to town on both the Jelly Babies’ parties but I realised (with a mixture of a heavy heart and a huge sense of relief) that going forward the oldest Jelly Baby’s parties will be much simpler affairs.
This got me thinking about some of the parties I have thrown for him in previous years and without doubt my favourite was the Safari party we held to celebrate his 4th birthday. In the week leading up to the party we had fun creating some very basic decorations to transform our house into the African Plains (I know tigers live in China and not on African Plains but…..) We also gathered together all the animals we owned and scattered them round the room to set the scene.
With the littlest Jelly Baby disguised as a meerkat and the birthday boy resplendent in his elephant costume we were all set for the stars of the show to arrive. Animal Magic arrived with a whole menagerie of creatures. These included Bobby the Parrot, a gang of meerkats, a flock of ducks, a herd of guinea pigs, a colony of rabbits, an albino hedgehog, a chihuahua and a whole host of reptiles. The children were completely enthralled from start to finish and even those who were initially hesitant loved learning about the animals.
With the animals safely packed away and hands thoroughly cleaned, the children enjoyed a safari themed party tea. We had animal shaped sandwiches, a sinister looking cucumber snake, animal crisps, animal biscuits, and chocolate monkey cakes. You’ll notice there isn’t a photo of the birthday cake. That’s because it was an absolute disaster but that’s a story for another day.
The Wobbly Jelly 