Home made party

The boys are one now. Hurrah! I was meant to return to work in March but I've extended until September so it will be 18 months parental leave (at least). When I first started writing this I said I was going to explore what I could and couldn't do at the same time as being a parent.

I'm telling you right now there is absolutely no way in the world that I could have had a home made party for my boys if I was also working. The reality is you can't get a great deal done at the same time as looking after three children under three. You really do have to break it down to one job a day. If I was working, it would have been one job per night and having suffered through almost a year of extreme sleep deprivation I'm hardly up for imposing late nights upon myself.

I was conscious of not going over the top but to be honest, I really don't think you can over do celebrating your twins turning one. This is a massive milestone. I totally Pinterested it up. Yes, I am apparently a Pinterest mum now. Did not understand what Pinterest was until about six months ago. Now I love it. We went with a monkey theme.

The invitations took a day and then another day to go and get them printed. The cake took me pretty much a day, not to mention the hours I spent surfing the internet to find the perfect cake in the first place. I even test baked a cake to make sure the recipe was still nice when I halved the sugar. We decided to make our own sausages (ambitious I know), with Ed's help this pretty much also took a day. Spinach and ricotta rolls I did a few days earlier and froze, same with the sausage rolls. Little mini-monkey biscuits I made a week ahead and vacuum sealed to keep them fresh. Again, all the rolling and cutting of dough takes forever but you've also got to take into account the time I took searching for the best low sugar, toddler friendly recipe.

I also spent hours sourcing the perfect 'party favours' because I wanted to avoid giving out lollies. Ended up with a soft toy monkey for the littlest guests and a bag for the toddlers which included a colouring page with a picture of two monkeys, monkey stickers, bubbles, a few crayons, a little monkey puppet that I had to print and stick on to a popstick and the monkey biscuits that I had to package separately so the crumbs didn't get everywhere. All these little things take time - lots of time.

If I'd been working, we would have had a pretty similar party. I'm sure it would have been great but I would have bought everything and probably spent all the money I'd earnt working. Anyway, I enjoyed doing it myself. It was fun!