As I was so poorly for Teddy's first birthday and had to cancel everything, I wanted to really make up for it for his 2nd!

For a little one who loves the beach! I couldn’t think of a better theme! Beach Party! Unfortunately his birthday is mid september, so weather isn’t guaranteed! This was not going to stop me. We put up the marquee, a purchase of my dads years before when he saw them on offer in Costco, and I ordered a lot of sand! We lay down blue tarp and my dad helped make a border in the corner of the marquee to contain the sand. Yep, I created a beach in the middle of the cheshire countryside. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, the sand was my extravagance. I would have loved to have the paddling pool etc out but it just was not warm enough for 2 year olds. So I made do by filling the paddling pool with ball pit balls and inflated beach balls. Put the end of the slide in the pool and we had a really fun alternative! We inflated another mini slide we had which was designed to go into a splash pool, lots of inflatable floats we’d acquired from various holidays (ok I did buy a few new too). Anything that could entertain them outdoors and didn’t look out of place went up. I even dared to have a tub of water for water play! It ended up being milder than I thought so a bit of water play never hurts. Throw in some buckets, spades and sand toys, plus some cheap decorations on the walls and you have a beach party!

This was my first year to get excited about party bags/favours. I didn’t want the generic plastic bags full of plastic toys that fall apart within minutes. I wanted something they could use over and over again. What better than a bucket and spade. I had so much fun finding other bits to add in with these. Some tissue paper to make them stand out a bit. For sweets I got crispy tiddlers, less sugar for the little ones and Teddy’s favourites at the time. Little under the sea themed note pads and stamps, stickers. Little windmills were a favourite of mine and of course some funky sunglasses. They were so much fun to put together. You can obviously go on forever with these things. If you wanted to recreate them you could choose to add more or less budget dependent. They looked great displayed and the kids loved them!

Food our signature BBQ, with some nibbles/finger foods out buffet style where the cake was displayed. I love everything to look aesthetically pleasing. So setting out the cake, favours and nibbles is just as essential to me as the décor.
The cake we had made at a bakery in Frodsham, my mum had used them for years with our birthday cakes and various other celebrations.