Caterpillar cakes and cocktail sausages are usually the order of the day, but one Cork Mum used her children’s birthday party as a chance to have some real artistic family fun…. by recreating the house from the Pixar movie Up.
Audrey Lenihan, mum to Olivia (6) and twins Emilie and Aidan (4), wowed her guests by creating a garden tribute to the movie for less than it would have cost to host the party at a local activity centre.
The Passage West mum told us:
“I wanted to throw a different type of party that would be memorable. Something they hadn’t seen before. I sat down with the children and took notes of all the scenes in the movie that seemed to catch their attention. Then I did some Google Images and Pinterest research.”
So how did she pull it together in time? With the help of her little assistants. At the Lenihan’s, party planning is a family affair:
“My parties are for my children and to give them something special to remember and beautiful pictures to have when they are older. I hope it will show them how much I love and adore them. The children are very involved in everything. We have spent countless lovely hours searching images to print. And they love making little items with clay… ladybirds, frogs. It’s a lovely time to spend with them and they are so proud to see their own creations displayed on the day.”
It’s not the first time Audrey has thrown an epic kids bash, last year’s party was based on a fairy wonderland: “I ordered a great Irish child friendly clay from CLAYOTIC and the children and I spent days making little fairies, toadstools and fairy doors. I got beautiful prints, stickers and bottle labels from A Print Less Ordinary in Laois. Five months on, children still tell me they loved it and still have their Fairy Dust and toadstools!
When the props from another party, this time an Alice in Wonderland theme, were donated for a fundraising coffee morning, more than €1,000 was raised for ChildVision.
“I don’t do these parties to be better than anyone else.” she added. “It’s not about or one-upmanship. I do it because the children love it, I’m good at it and it’s a fun challenge to see what we can come up with. It is just a lovely side effect that our friends and family seem to love them too.”
Have you thrown an epic children’s party? Send us a picture or two and it could be featured on HerFamily.ie! Email katie.mythen@gmail.com.
