Little Ladies Amin (Finishing Quran) Party

I had promised Little Lady a party when she finished reading the whole Quran.  She finished last month, but as my sister-in-law was due to give birth around the time, I delayed a few weeks until my beautiful little niece had arrived.   Once my darling niece was here, we picked a date and started pulling our ideas together.

We got the idea for the colour scheme from some bunting I picked up cheaply - green, teal and pink.  The colour scheme didn't end up matching perfectly (hard to find teal balloons at short notice, but just about went together).

Kooky Little Sister created the balloon arch and put up the bunting.

We kept the boys busy by asking them to create a den in the living room using the snooker table, blankets, cushions and soft toys.  In hindsight this turned out to be a good idea.  The boys at the party - about ten of them aged three to ten turned the front room into a bachelor pad and stayed there playing games to begin with and then jumping off the snooker table.

Fashionista Sister spent hours baking for the party.   The Malteaser cake was her special surprise for us and got totally demolished, first by little kids trying to sneak Malteasers and then by just about everyone.

She also made these fairy cakes with messages for Little Lady

Kooks and Fashionista set up the dessert tables and mash'Allah I was really happy with the job they had done.

This gorgeous pink cake and the brownies were a gift from my very dear friend and sister Sumaiyah, who is a fab cook mash'Allah.  I had to hide some of these to make sure I got some too.

I was so busy I didn't manage to get decent pictures of the food.  The menu included chicken biryani courtesy of my Aunt, soft lamb kebabs made my mum and Fashionista's famous chicken sandwiches (no party of ours is complete without them).  I made chicken noodles, chicken pasta, macaroni salad, kachumber salad, aloo chaat, baked chicken, potato wedges and mint sauce.  I wanted to be sure there would be enough food!

The party was great fun.  Kooks counted about 25 children at one point, so it was also pretty raucous. Little Lady acted like the belle of the ball and was proud to have her best friend around for the first time and  she got some wonderful gifts which she is making use of now.

How else can I tell it was a good party?

1. Every single room in the house was trashed and there was food everywhere
2. There were hordes of little kids (I mean three and four year olds) camped out all the way up the stairs getting high on sugar.
3. Somebody broke the snooker table.

My kids insisted that next time we have a party no kids should be invited, specially no little kids.  I think maybe next time I'll wait till they are in school and invite the ladies around.  Better still I might have pizza night and invite my sisters around.

Thank you to my sisters for all of their help setting up, running around with me and also for the pics in this post.