Preparing for the Big Birthday Party

the stickers I finally found

So the preparation for the big birthday has begun. Coop chose a fire fighter theme this year.  I was hoping for an Octonauts theme myself, but he was adamant.  Needless to say I have once again bit off way more than I can chew, but I am going to take it as a challenge and give it my all.  Let me just start off by saying it is not easy to plan a party in a city that you are not familiar with-- where do I get party supplies? Where do I go to get helium for balloons? Who will print the invites for us and how much will posting them cost?   These were all unknowns to me. And, to top it off, it seems firefighter birthday parties are not as big as they are back home. I had to go to a half-dozen stores before finding some fire fighter themed stickers!! If only Coop chose trains or the Wiggles (thank goodness he didn't!) it would have been much easier!

Coop and I looked through tons of photos of firetruck cakes and, of course, he picked the most realistic looking cake he could find. I will have to fudge that a bit.  :) I got some supplies from a great site out of Melbourne.  Kmart and Hot Dollar also came in handy.  I have what seems like a hundred pounds of "icing sugar" (powdered sugar in the US) for all the buttercream icing we will need to ice the cake. I have Starbursts  for the front lights, Mentos (mint) for the lights along the side, Wagon Wheel cookies for the wheels, we made a fondant ladder today and tons of white chocolate melts for windows. We still need to pick up something for the hose.  I made the dough for the fire hat cheese crackers that I will bake on Thursday and it is waiting in the freezer. The m&ms have been sorted (red, orange and yellow only for this party- guess we have to eat the rest).  I am intending to make a fire truck for the kids to play in, but not sure about that.  I am also going to make some flames out of poster board to decorate the apartment.  Oh, and I cannot forget the fire fighter songs CD I made to play at the party and maybe even burn for all the guests. Who knows.

So if you hear screams of frustration coming from down under, it is just me getting ready for Cooper's very first birthday party with friends.  Wish me luck!

 These are the invitations Cooper made for the party...