Sofia is turning five in less than a month. As her mom, my to do list includes planning her parties. Yes, that's not a grammatical error. I really said partieS!
In the pre-school age, a lot of the kids have a small celebration at school. The bare minimum would include a cake blowing ceremony and loot bags. In Singapore, the school only gives you 15 minutes (during the snack break) for this celebration.
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| Sofia's cake blowing party at Brighton Montessori last year. |
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| We had an Angry Birds Rio party because Sofia celebrated her actual birthday in Brazil. |
Pre-schools in Manila put more into giving the kids real parties. My friend, whose daughter is Sofia's classmate told me that parents normally prepare food for the kids, then they have an option of preparing prizes too, and the teachers take care of facilitating the games. Since this isn't done at big schools, it would be Sofia's first and only year to experience a pre-school party celebrated in Manila style. For busy parents, this is very convenient because aside from buying the party stuff, all the need to do is just show up. The only catch is that if your child is new to the school, chances are she hasn't really developed friendships with all her classmates yet, so though the party will be fun, there still the need to have another party to celebrate with friends.
Good thing, I love party planning. Hahaha... and I love finding cost-effective solutions to make a party, or in this case partieS, fun without breaking the bank. I go to168, a wholesale mall in downtown Manila, to get whatever I need for Sofia's parties. Even when we lived in Singapore, this was where I bought all our party supplies and party favors.
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| For Sofia's 5th Birthday Party in school, I got her generic I'm turning 5 invites. |
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| We dressed it up with letter stamps, also from 168. |
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| I bought this set for Php150 (less than SG$5). Similar sets from typo and kikki k. would cost atleast SG$20. |
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| It didn't come with an ink pad, so I bought this stamp set with dual colored ink for Php25. (less than SG$1) |
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| Sofia helped me stamp out the invites for her classmate. Can you tell which ones she made? |
The trip to 168 was a success because I was also able to get giveaways (not pictured because it's a surprise) for all the kids, balloons, a birthday banner, and even table napkins for Sofia's Teddy Bear Tea Party, the one she wants to host for her friends and their soft toys.
It isn't really advisable to bring kids to 168 because it can get quite crowded, so I told Sofia not to come with us and I'd just buy some things for her. The only thing she asked me for was a fake iPhone. Way to go Steve! even for pretend phones, it's the iPhone that rules.
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| I couldn't resist buying educational sticker books because they were only 3 for Php100. (3 for SG$3). |
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| I got Sofia two iPhones. One in black and one in white. 2 for Php50 (around 2 for SG$1.50) |
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| Each phone comes with 2 pens. This is something even apple hasn't done yet! Hahaha. |
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| My daughter insisted on carrying both phones in her shoulder bag. |
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| Sofia intently checking out her apps. |
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| She was chatting on it the whole night. |
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| She pretends to be talking on one while the other is charging. |
The iPhones were only Php50. At first I was vehemently against buying them because they would just add to the clutter in our house but when Sofia specifically asked for one, I couldn't say no. I'm glad I did because her joy in playing with them was just priceless. just saying.
