Not going to be able to call her “Tiny Neve” for very much longer, given that she’s now six year’s old.
A week’s stress and anxiety over party preparations resolved, amazingly enough, into a fairly relaxed and focussed day. We all got up early and worked quietly and with concentration at our various tasks: Lola made the “pin the ice-cream to the cone” drawing and blew up balloons; Isa prepared for the art session – gathering inks, brushes, paper – and prepared the ice-cream parlour; Neve ensured that everyone was doing the appropriate job, otherwise engaging herself in playing with her new Sylvanian family; I prepared ingredients for cake-making and blew up balloons.
Isa went out shopping while we others continued with the in-house prep; the girls’ attention dwindling, they wandered off to play. The rest of the preparations all came together well and without explosions of emotion. A win!
I made the cake: a victoria sponge spread with Nutella (actually, an organic Italian hazelnut and chocolate spread called Nocciolata which is even more yummier) and whipped cream in the centre with a tasteful powder-blue butter-cream icing on top. We decorated it with mini-cones with a marshmallow plonked in the top. It was, in case I’ve not mentioned it, an ice-cream-themed party.
Anyway, enough plodding through the preparations. Suffice it to say we were ready and relaxed when the guests started to arrive. Emily Sutton, Rosie (of Erika and Chris), Sophie (of Jenny, whom I had not met and is friendly and interesting), Charleigh (pronounced “Charlie”, not sure why the spelling; has an amazing voice), and Alma (of Sarah and web-designy bloke whose name I don’t know).
Initial play with balloons (we’d blown up about 30) and mad screaming around the house settled easily enough into “build a huge ice-cream with a cardboard cone and a million balloons (OK, OK: 30)” which segued easily enough into having a snack (fruit, vegetables, mozzarella) around the table. Sophie was unexpectedly (and near shockingly) manic — Isa took her out of the room for A Word after she (lightly) stabbed Emily in the head with a cocktail stick.
Then followed a “design your ice-cream” activity which went amazingly well – they quite possibly spent half an hour in concentrated effort. Isa had some really nice acrylic inks that she rationed out by the drop as it was requested and this helped keep the palette small and strong. And kept the mess down!
Once the designs were in, they went 
off to Lola’s ice-cream parlour to get their design (or something else they randomly fancied) made up. Rosie had the spaghetti ice you see Lola making here. Raspberry/tomato sauce and grated white chocolate/parmesan: yum!
There were Coca-Cola floats and 
classic cups and wondrous cones with toppings a-plenty.
They spent so much time designing and then eating ice-cream that parents came to collect before we’d done the cake or played either of the games we’d lined up. The kids were insistent we played pass-the-parcel, so we did; with Neve running the music, rather than taking part. She knew exactly what she wanted and jumped onto YouTube to find the Horrible Histories songs about Henry VIII.
And, amazingly after all that ice-cream, cake was still wanted, as was the whole singy celebration, so (thanking parents for their patience) we gathered round the table and finished off in the traditional way.