This is mostly for my own reference but some of you may find the info useful too.

Party Location

I decided to use Scrumptious Cafe at Turf City for Anya’s birthday party because it’s relatively near my place. The last time I went to Scrumptious, the food was pretty good as well. I like the play area that they have. It’s big enough so kids can have enough space but small enough so it’s easy to keep an eye on your kid. It’s also more suitable for younger kids unlike some of the other places like Fidgets. Anya definitely had fun playing with the toys and bouncing around on the trampoline.

It was quite difficult trying to secure the place for the party though. They don’t have a website nor an email address listed anywhere. When I called and asked for info on their party packages, the lady who took down my name and email address never got back to me. I had to call again and explain want I wanted all over again to get the info sent to me. After looking at the packages, I decided to just reserve a table instead of getting a specific package because the packages didn’t really suit my needs and I wanted my guests to be able to order whatever they wanted from the menu. Scrumptious was fine with that and even said they would do the birthday deco for me. They also went out of the way to clear a space in their fridge for Anya’s ginormous cake which I thought was very nice of them.

Initially, they wanted to send me the menu and get my guests to pre-order so that they wouldn’t have to wait too long for the food on that day. Then they said the size was manageable and we didn’t need to pre-order. But 2 nights before the party, they sent me the menu and said they had another group reservation for that Saturday and thought it would be better if we pre-ordered. There was something wrong with the menu document they sent me and I replied and said I had problems reading it but they didn’t send me another one. Obviously, I couldn’t get my friends’ orders in advance with such short notice.

On the day itself, we turned up on time but the tables were not arranged and there were no decorations yet. And the deco turned out to be a rather sad string of plastic party flags and a cardboard sign for the entrance. I know it’s good of them to do the deco even though we didn’t get a package but if I’d known that it was going to be so sparse, I would have brought my own deco to add to it. But the most disappointing part was that many, many items on the menu were not available or were sold out and whatever we did manage to order didn’t taste great. We also had to remind them of certain orders that didn’t get delivered to the table. When the bill came, some of the stuff we’d ordered but didn’t get because they were sold out were not taken off the bill so that was a pain as well.

I just feel that they should have been more prepared since they were dealing with the Saturday crowd and two group reservations. After all, there’s a Giant in Turf City, so if they were running low on ingredients, they could have restocked. I’ll probably go back to Scrumptious again just to hang out and let Anya play but won’t entrust another important party to them which is sad because I liked the place. :(

Still, I think the kids had fun and that’s the most important to me. I can’t wait to see the pictures that Joan took!! She’s so nice to come down and take photos for Anya’s party even though she’s so busy. Thanks, babe! I really appreciate it.

Birthday Cake

I got the cake from Smiling Orchid because I wanted something traditional, i.e. a big number ‘1’ without any 3D things on it. The cake was HUGEEEE and we barely made a dent in it!! I ordered vanilla sponge with chocolate chip filling and I thought it was quite nice and the cake was very pretty too!

Party Bag

I didn’t realise how challenging it would be trying to put together a party goody bag for a bunch of under-2s! If you look at all the party favours in the shops, they are for 3 years and above because of small parts! So this was what I come up with in the end:

That little ol’ shop in Holland V that is beside StanChart (or is it HSBC) has a lot of affordable party stuff. I got the bags ($2 for 12) and blowouts ($4 for 12) there. They have nice balloons too and I got one for Anya on her birthday. It’s still floating around my house!! The clappers were quite popular with the kids and those are from Centrepoint. The stuffed toy is just $1.50 and the bath squeeze toy is $9.95 for 4 (the other three being whale, hippo and crocodile). The kids really love the ladybird because it zips around and flips over. Those are $1.90 each from Great World City. The organic raisins are from Rail Mall and cost $7.20 for 18 mini boxes. And of course, the Baby Bites are $2.40 for a box of 24 from any supermarket.