Sponsored Review
April and May have been pretty stressful and hectic months for me since a while ago. Joey and Jayne’s birthdays fall on these 2 months respectively, and since I am quite a believer of good parties, I usually spend quite a bit of time preparing for the girls’ parties. From the invitation cards to decorations, food, goodie bags and programs, I DIY most of them and try to make the parties as wonderful as possible for my kids. It probably helps that I enjoy DIY stuffs, but at the end of every party, I am usually reduced to a pile of wreak, and need a week to recover from all the stress and tiredness.
This year, Swensen’s very kindly offered to sponsor Joey’s 8th birthday party and I cannot tell you how much burden and load it’s taken off my shoulders. I mean, I really do enjoy planning and executing the parties for my kids, but that usually means I don’t really get to enjoy them. I am always running around ensuring that everything is in place, food is sufficient, making sure that the guests have all that they need, etc etc. When we had Joey’s party last Saturday at ION Swensen’s, I finally felt that I could relax and go through the whole party with my girl and her friends. I had fun!
Joey had the free rein to decide on her guest list this year. For the last 7 years, we usually have more of daddy & mummy’s friends than her personal friends, so I thought we should do it different this year. It’s after all, her party. And so, it turned out that we had a rather small group of friends at the party (at a very big venue at Swensen’s =P), but the party turned out to be really fun because every kid got the party hosts’ focused attention. Interestingly, all the kids were GIRLS! You can imagine the amount of screeching in that place. When they got excited during games time, it was extremely high-pitched, I tell ya.
If you are planning to hold a birthday party at Swensen’s, this post will give you a good idea of how the party’s going to be like. :)
THE SPACE
Check out the party space! Very huge space, private and colorfully decorated - Joey was so thrilled to see her name on the wall! :)
THE FOOD
The food’s set up in a nice corner for us. I got to choose a total of 5 food items and 2 drinks for the party, and coffee & tea’s included as well, much to the adults’ delight. Everyone loved the food! But I guess it’s hard not to like them, cos I ordered all the kids’ favorites! :P
The spaghetti in tomato sauce was GOOD! The sauce’s very tasty and hearty, and most of the kids had second and third helpings of it.
Ahem, who doesn’t love French Fries?? These thick fries were so addictive.
The sausage roll and mini pizzas were a hit with the kids as well. And I made sure there were chicken nuggets too, because I love them. ;P
PRE-PARTY ENTERTAINMENT
Before the party got started proper, the two party hosts warmed up the kids by making them pretty balloon wristlets, flower bouquets and fairy wands. They were so skilled with their hands! So glad to have these party hosts with us because they were so good with the kids. They even brought along props for the kids to take photos with, and that made the kids super excited.
When all the guests arrived, we started on the food first. I was really happy to see everyone enjoying the food. That could well be one of the most stressful part of a party, but I am glad Swensen’s settled that for me. Haha!
SUNDAE DEMONSTRATION
After everyone had their fill, the party hosts got the kids started on their first activity at the party – Sundae Demo! The kids were going to see a demo on how the Firehouse Sundae is being made at Swensen’s, then try to remake one themselves – SO MUCH FUN!
I’m sure you can guess – When it’s the kids’ turn to make their Firehouse sundae, they wanted as much toppings and sauces they can get onto the ice-cream, and the result was a huge cup of distorted and overflowing Firehouse sundae, which did not resemble the original creation at all. =P
Everyone wanted to try squeezing the whipped cream out from the bottle and everyone wanted to put a cherry on the sundae. It became a super big sundae with abundance of everything!
ICE-CREAM TIME!
And so the kids all dug into their Firehouse sundae, and one scoop of ice-cream was also served for everyone. There was abundance of ice-cream - But at Swensen’s, nobody complains of too much ice-cream, I guess!
GAMES!
Games time was when it got really, really noisy and loud. Excited kids are hard to be contained, but their laughter was contagious! Glad they had so much fun! They even taught the party hosts how to play A-E-I-O-U! Hilarious!
The games were all very simple ones, and the kids even won stickers and Swensen’s vouchers as prizes!
CAKE-CUTTING
Finally, it was cake-cutting time!
Check out Joey’s beautiful Disney Princess ice-cream cake! She chose the design herself from many available Disney Princess designs available. :)
Happy birthday, baby! What a joy to have you in our lives! :)
And thanks to all the friends who came by to celebrate together with Joey! :D
GOODIE BAGS
The final part of the birthday party is of course the giving of goodie bags, and they were prepared by Swensen’s. They made Joey sit down on a chair and shake hands with every little guest. :)
The party host even made a special balloon art for Joey at the end! Made her sooooo happy, haha!
The fun did not end there of course. We took down the balloon decorations from the wall and the kids had so much fun playing with them. Some got hungry again and helped themselves to more food. =P
To commemorate the special day for Joey, I got the kids to do two video clips for us – It was so funny! The kids were super cooperative!! Yay!!
Thank you Swensen’s, for making our girl’s birthday party such a fabulous one, and for making it so easy for me to relax and enjoy the party without a sweat! Big thanks for friends and little friends who took time to come by as well. Joey had a great time turning 8! :D
If you are interested to hold your birthday parties at Swensen’s as well, you can find all the details you need here. There are so many different types of parties you can hold at Swensen’s, and all kinds of add-on services according to your budget. The most important thing is almost every kid I know loves ice-cream, so you will not go wrong with holding a party at Swensen’s! Have fun planning yours! :)
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P/S: Joey’s 8th birthday party package including the professional party hosting service was sponsored by Swensen’s, however all photographs, experiences and opinions are all my own. The service was good and program was smoothly run from beginning to the end. Even though the official party time was 3pm to 5pm, but they did not chase us out when we stayed until 5.45pm. Kudos to the Swensen’s team and professional party hosts!
