On how to throw a Dairy Free Frozen Birthday Party...

OK, so... before we start this post, I'd like to point out that the theme to 'Baby's' party was chosen by her not me. 

Clue here:

She's obsessed!

Yes, you've guessed it - Frozen! 

BUT don't just sigh and switch off - let it go!! (ha! ha! OK, very, very bad joke!!)

If your little one is dairy free, like 'Baby' you might get some ideas for your little one's party - whether it's Frozen inspired or not! And, if you're NOT dairy free but just looking for some Frozen birthday ideas, well hopefully you'll find this post helpful too!

In a way that was quite good that 'Baby' wanted a Frozen party - it made things easier, to some extent - 'cos everyone seems to have done one already - there were loads of ideas on Pinterest.

The thing I've discovered with Pinterest though, is that some people seem to go overboard with the whole perfect party thing, so you really have to don your reality specs and view everything you see through those... that is unless you want to start becoming: 

a) despondent 

or 

b) Partyzilla (think 'Bridezilla' only with a birthday party to plan, rather than a wedding)!

I seemed to keep switching between the two, but ended up as mainly 'b'!

However, eventually, after losing hours of my life to Pinterest, I came up with a cunning plan - the whole party would retell the story behind the film, activities, games, food, everything!

So we started at the beginning with...

Do you wanna build a snowman??

Well we certainly built snowmen alright! 

I like to begin children's parties with a 'settling-in' activity, usually craft-based, so we built snowmen...

as party bags:

OK not perfect, like some you see on Pinterest, but all a child's own work - apart from the nose!

(These came from Hobbycraft. Of course a little cutting out of noses was required in advance - I pinned the sheet for this on my Frozen section on Pinterest.)


with marshmallows:

The kids loved making these!

(The bodies held together with the aid of cocktail sticks!)


we also played 'Pin the nose on Olaf'...

The second face (in case you're wondering) was the acetate for judging the winner!

and we built snowmen out of loo roll too!

We (well the children) wrapped willing adults (parents who'd stayed for the party).

I split the children into four teams, gave them an adult, some toilet roll, an Olaf mask and some time. I only wish I'd had time to take some pics!! 

As all the craft and snowman wrapping took longer than I anticipated, some of the rest of my theme went flying out the window!

We did still play:

Frozen Corners

I had four willing helpers wearing masks of the four main characters - one in each corner of the room. Children had to decide which character to stand by before I cut a deck of cards. Depending which card was shown eliminated a group of children each time, until one player was left.

Frozen statues! 

Y'know the good old party favourite of Musical Statues, only this time set to music from the Frozen film. S'ppose it goes without saying, but this game was to represent the part of the film, where Elsa lets loose her powers!

Pass the Iceblock

Good old Pass the Parcel - all dressed up! This was to represent the role of the ice cutter in the story!

The prize was this snowman kit from WHSmith, wrapped in layers and layers of silvery wrapping paper - each layer opening rewarded with a dairy free Chocolate coin!

I interspersed silver tissue paper and silver Christmas wrap, to distinguish easily between layers!

And we also played:

Frozen Tag

This was to tell the story of Anna rescuing Elsa. The idea was that a child would race around being Elsa and 'tag' other children, who would then be 'frozen' into 'statues'. Another child would be 'Anna' and rush around 'melting' the 'frozen' children with a hug!

They seemed to enjoy this game, but to avoid it going on for ever, I had to enlist another 'Elsa' and curtail 'Anna' - to bring everyone to an eventual standstill!! 

Other games I had up my sleeve, as 'possibles' were: 

• The Hot and Cold game - someone goes out of the room during which time some item is hidden. On returning to the room the person has to find the item with the help of everyone else yelling 'hot' if they're close to its hiding place, or 'cold' if they're not.

• Elsa's Frozen Footsteps - a bit like 'What's the time Mr Wolf'.

• Frozen Kim's game - with items related to the story e.g. carrot

Dairy Free Prizes

included:

• mini Haribo packs (from multipacks)

• Frozen glow wands (from The Entertainer)

• small toys from places like Poundland

I like to include non-food/sweet prizes when/where I can!

Eventually, it was time for our dairy free feast, to celebrate Elsa's homecoming...

We had:

• Sandwiches with either ham, chicken, jam or Plamil's dairy free chocolate spread. The children certainly ate them up!

• Cucumber, carrot and mini bread sticks (Waitrose own brand are dairy free) to dip into Olaf hummus (bowl of hummus with face made of carrot and olives). 

• Original Pom Bears (dairy and gluten free). I would have liked the Snowmen Pom Bears that I found the other year, but this year Pom Bear didn't make them :(

• Asda Freefrom Shortbread biscuits - I added some pale blue icing and sprinkles to 'Frozen' them!

Dr Oetker products are usually (but not always) dairy and gluten free.

• There were also these fruity royal sceptres (the marshmallows were specifically aimed at encouraging picky eaters like my 'Baby' to eat fruit!!):

Well I had to add some healthy food in somehow!

• and we had some melting Olaf jelly dessert - for when summer returned to Arandelle!

Totally pinched from Pinterest!

• Frozen Cupcakes - good old Hale and Hearty gluten free chocolate muffin mix, made up with dairy free Pure margarine and topped with some printed rice paper cake toppers, that The Hub found on Amazon.

We made them in silver cupcake cases to add to the Frozen effect.

• And Birthday Cake!!

The birthday cake was intended to be this one (which actually we ended up in having for another day, when she had friends to birthday tea): 

By no means perfect, but 'Baby' was pleased!

This took some of the pressure of the party off me - I was so afraid it would go wrong and also that there wouldn't be enough to go around the twenty plus kids invited to her party!!

See how it was made here!

If Elsa is more your little one's thing, or you like a challenge, there's a tutorial here, by a lady who obviously makes these cakes professionally. Definitely lives up to the description!  Stunning Elsa cake

'Baby's' party cake ended up being this ready made cake - bought from the shelves of a Tesco supermarket, but also available from Sainsbury's.

Yes, I know it's cheating, but I never claimed to be Super Mum!

It just about went 'round - being not as big as I expected it to be, when I saw it in its packaging.

When it was time to go home...

The snowman bags the children had made were packed with their marshmallow Olafs and these party bags, which were all dairy free, apart from these chocolate bars, which came from The Works.

Oo look! Same size as a Moo Free choccy bar!

But guess what? Some spare wrapping paper from the outer packet, and a Moo Free Chocolate bar, soon became a dairy free one for 'Baby'. Okay so she was not fooled for long - she soon worked out what I had done, but didn't seem too disappointed! It was the only non- dairy free thing about the whole party, so she didn't have too much to complain about, did she?!

'Baby's' packet

And after the party...

we cleared up the hired hall and went out for a meal at ASK Italian, so we could recover!!

On the actual day of her birthday, I sent 'Baby' into school with this, for her friends:

Yup! More dairy free cake! The Olaf wasn't made by me - it was part of a set!

It went down really well with her teachers and friends!! For the recipe, see here.

A few days later, we encouraged 'Baby' to write some 'Thank You's'. Well, she wrote their name and hers, I wrote the rest - but she is only five!!

The Hub made these

Further Resources:

If you're planning a Frozen party, I strongly recommend this post for links to a whole load of other Frozen inspired ideas. You might just spot where I picked up some of mine! 

Alternatively, check out my Frozen board on Pinterest, 'cos a lot of the ideas I picked up online are pinned there! 

If you're in the UK, I don't know if they still have them, but Asda had a great range of Frozen party plates/tablecovers etc. and so did The Works, who also had sticker books and even huge cut-outs of Frozen figures (like the one we had of Olaf). However, you could use silver paper plates and frosted plastic disposables (to look like ice).

Online, check out Party Delights range. They have loads!!

And more recently, I've caught sight of a fantastic new cake decorating resource which sadly wasn't available when 'Baby' had her party. It can be found at Lakeland, see here! 

P.S.

Apologies for some of the dodgy photography! It's hard acting as the party planner, caterer, hostess and official photographer, you know ;)

Baby's Birthday

Blogging's gone a little bit by the wayside recently, as I've been a wee bit busy. Baby had a birthday, which was the cause of much frantic house activity - so much of our stuff was still in boxes (following our recent move) and urgently needed shifting!! 

The birthday brought a moment of harsh reality for me - it really brought home to me the fact that Baby is not a baby any more. 

It's something I've known for a while really - she's been growing so fast; acquiring new vocabulary and developing new skills so quickly, I can barely keep up! The Hub and I keep looking at each other in astonishment as she surprises us with something new that she can say or do. In fact her height (she must take after The Hub) and language skills have fooled many into thinking she is a year older than she actually is! 

This is all very scary for me, especially as it looks like she will be my only baby - I have no intention of having any other and somehow I can't seem to break the habit of calling her 'Baby'. It's a hard habit to break... but I am trying!! However, for the purposes of this blog, she will  always remain 'Baby'.

We marked Baby's birthday in the usual way - with a party. Having moved, we know few children her own age, so decided to invite her cousins (who she loves to bits and calls her best friends, anyway). 

The theme was not exactly original  (as I discovered when I Googled it online) but an obvious choice (given her love of bears) it was a teddy bears' picnic!

If you go down in the woods today...

In fact the lack of originality, on my part, meant that I was able to borrow plenty of great ideas from other mummies, who had (scarily) gone very much to town on the whole thing. I decided I was not under pressure to conform to their standards and contented myself with the  knowledge that Baby would have a great time anyway, and she did.

It all began with a trip to 'Build a Bear' (an exciting event, in and of itself). This was The Hub's job. I think The Hub may not have been totally sold on this idea, but, as I pointed out, it's easier to do now (with just a few cousins) than when she's eight and wants to invite the whole class!! A well-timed 25%  off voucher certainly sweetened the pill.

Meanwhile, my job was to frantically re-tidy the house (it had been all in order in the morning) and set the scene.

First I set up Baby's bears, with their own little tea party.

Then I arranged some bear activities:

• 'Hunt the Bear' was arranged in the garden - tiny laminated bears were pegged around the garden, signs were set up, and tea lights were set up strategically to light the way (it took place in the dark). Prizes involved chocolate coins for all. Of course, Baby's were dairy free (from Sainsbury's).

• A table was set with gingerbread bears that Baby and I had made earlier in the week (using a really simple recipe, that I'll post soon). Icing and decorations were left out, so the children could decorate them to their hearts' desire.

• Baby's easel was set up, with a big bear picture and a scarf, so that blindfolded participants (including adults, and yes, they did join in) could 'Pin the Heart on the Bear'. 

• We also played 'Musical Bears' (at Baby's request). The children danced with their teddies to the music, until it stopped. After the first round, Baby declared herself the winner. She was much disgusted when the game carried on and refused to participate - as far as she was concerned the game was over!

• 'Pass the Bear' also worked well. We passed a teddy until the music stopped. Whoever had the bear when the music stopped got a chocolate coin - funny how they all ended up with the same amount (thanks Dad)!!

When it came to food, I set out the picnic 'rug' (a disposable tablecloth) for the children on the floor of our living area, set it with plates and filled it with bowls of food.

The dairy free menu included:

• Pom Bears (of course) of the dairy free 'Original' variety.

• Ham sandwiches (made with dairy free bread and spread) cut into Teddy Bear heads (using a cookie cutter). I would have made marmalade sandwiches (a la Paddington) and honey (a la Winnie the Pooh) but a brief of survey of the mummies involved suggested this would be a 'no go' (their kids wouldn't eat it).

• Cupcakes made with Hale and Hearty's 'Classic Vanilla Sponge Cake' (I ran out of time) were decorated with Betty Crocker 'Buttercream Style' vanilla icing and Flossie Crum's raspberry flavoured icing. They were topped off with Winnie the Pooh characters. 

• The children's own decorated gingerbread bears.

Baby's  Gingerbread Bear

There was of course plenty of non-bear food, as well, such as grapes, mini tomatoes, bread sticks etc.

Cheese, for the those who could have it, was placed well out of the reach of Baby on the adult's table  (there were aunts, uncles and grandparents to feed too) but offered to the non dairy free children as well.

There were also Mc Cain's Smiles (smiley potato faces) and Sainsbury's own Free From Chicken Nuggets. Which went down well, with both children and adults alike!

I had planned to do dairy free ice cream in teddy bear cones as well, but actually, the children had plenty of food and needed to save room for the inevitable dairy free teddy bear cake!

We all had a great time. Although hard work, it was  such fun and as I had provided all the food, I had no worries about what food was safe (or not) for us to eat and could put safeguards in place. However, I must admit, I was tempted by the pizza, on the adults table! *sigh* If I'd had time, I could perhaps have made some for me, oh well! Another time!!

BTW for those of you who, like me, are gluten free, word is that Dominoes now do a  pizza with a gluten and dairy free base! However, not sure if I really want mine without cheese... What do you think?