We’ve entered the world of kid’s parties. Not just for nieces and nephews and close friends’ children, but with an small human actively participating and taking home lolly bags. While he’s still young enough not to know that we eat the contents of his bag, it won’t be long until he does.
If you’re an “everything in moderation” sort of person, a lolly bag here and there won’t do any harm. With Harvey still young, I’m going down the path of “delay as long as possible” and when the inevitable occurs, “minimise where possible”.
And if there’s someone reading this, who has hosted us at their kid’s party. Don’t worry, I’m not judging your lolly bags. They were delicious 😋
I however, set myself the challenge of a lolly free party. With plenty of ideas from friends who have walked this path this is how it looked…
The Food
For the Kid’s part of the afternoon:
- We served up a mixture of sweet and savoury, all healthy where possible.
- Home made (by my Mum, who’s famous for them) sausage rolls – actually packed full of vegetables, with many less additives and preservatives than the sausage rolls in the frozen section in the supermarket. We also had some made with gluten free pastry for those who required it.
- Home made (by my Mummy also) mini quiche – a combination of bacon, spinach, salmon
- Home made jelly – The basic recipes can be found here: https://santoshawellbeing.com.au/gelatin-treats/. I used a combination of apple juice (these disappeared very quickly), blended strawberries and then strawberries and coconut cream. The strawberries and coconut cream were a weird texture and they looked like fritz…I don’t recommend them. They tasted fine…if you could get past the cold, sweet fritz. Definitely not for kids. But I do recommend getting yourself some grass-fed gelatin (not the kind in your usual supermarket, but the good stuff) and making some jelly for the kids. They devour it and it’s actually really good for their gut. You can purchase good quality gelatine here.
- Fruit platter – with all sorts of fruit available at the time
- Melting Moments – whenever my Mother-in-law says, “What shall I bring?” my answer is melting moments. She probably doesn’t need to ask anymore. She makes THE BEST melting moments, gluten free as well.
For the adults part of the evening:
- Thai green curry, Butter chicken and Beef stew – all made in bulk, served straight from the slow cookers, over rice. It was a cold night and these went down a treat. We had trouble keeping up the rice cooking!
- More fruit and cheese platters
- A few left over sausage rolls
The Cake
The cake was a compromise, between healthy, gluten free, low sugar, etc. AND the fact that it’s a birthday cake and an important part of the party!
The outside was a decadent white chocolate ganache with a fondant H. But on the inside, we had a gluten and dairy free (the dairy probably wasn’t necessary seeing as the ganache was dairy heavy!) chocolate cake with the base being beetroot! The beetroot makes a really rich, moist cake. And it’s gluten-free 👌🏼 There was a little sugar in the mix and the layers were held together with jam, so there was some more sugar there. But hey, it’s a birthday cake! Everything in moderation.
The “Lolly Bags”
- Minimal waste
- Useful
- Good for kids creativity
This was the bit I had the most fun with. I had SO many ideas, but I can’t use them up all in one party. I tried to stick with:
This is what we had:
- Playdough – This is what took me the most time, hours in fact. It would have been much simpler if I made one big batch and divided it between the all the kids. But no, I made it difficult. I made 5 different colours, all ‘flavoured’ with a different essential oil. And then I made a gluten free batch for the GF kiddos. Each child received two ‘flavours’ in their noodle box. I’ll post the play dough recipe below but here are the colours and essential oil ‘flavours’:
- Purple – Lavender
- Blue – Breathe blend
- Green – Peppermint
- Yellow – Lemon
- Orange – Wild Orange
- Crayons – there’s a great Facebook page called Crayon Central. You can get crayons for any occasion. I was ordering around Easter time and she had so many great Easter themed packs. I settled for some various coloured number 1s.
- Stickers – I went through The Reject Shop but I’m sure anywhere would have cheap sticker books.
- Glue pens – Despite them being a bit of a plastic waste, they were hopefully good for a bit of art ‘n’ craft.
- Bouncy balls – Again, a bit of a plastic/rubber waste. But at least they promoted a bit of activity and hand-eye coordination.
Games
The children at the party were aged from about 10 months to 8 years. So we needed a game they could all understand and participate in. I settled for one game and that was ‘Pass the Parcel’. All kids are capable of ripping paper off stuff. I’ve posted before about my collection of saved gift wrapping, so this was a great opportunity to use some of that up.
I’d love to hear your ideas from parties you’ve been to or parties you’ve organised. What games were played? What was in the ‘lolly bag’? What was your child’s favourite part?