Out of all my pre-written posts, I thought I’d better put this one up before T1’s birthday again in September this year. Because you know, that is very possible once things get busy and crazy around here.
Last year, because I’d just started working, I told T1 – no big party. Let’s make it simple.
But by some weird turn of the wind, our simple turned out to be not as simple as I was imagining!
She wanted to celebrate her birthday with her classmates so I thought, OK, let’s just order McDonalds and call it a day. Simple, right?
Then she asked if she could have the CARS theme. So I ordered birthday cupcakes in the CARS theme which didn’t turn out exactly as I’d imagined it to be CARS themed but I’m not a whinger.
What about invitation cards? What???!!!
So I spent an hour designing invitation cards and the Hubs (bless him) was instructed to cut and paste these printed paper onto cards – PERFECTLY. Any sign of imperfection by my standards, were rejected. Lucky, he’s good at detailing…..
They were just small cards, the size of normal playing cards, on hard un-bendable card board. Mind you, he had to cut every piece of card from a large piece of card and because the card was so hard, it was no easy task. Initially, I’d wanted to do different designs on the deck of cards so each kid had a different car, but reality got the better of me and my left brain went WTF???!!!!
Then T1 asked, “What about Party Packs?”
My goodness! Does every party have to have a party pack???
So I got a stack of jumping beans and voila, everyone gets a jumping bean!
Of course, we then had to wrap them and label them………because making my own life difficult is a habit that has yet to be broken.
The ordering of McDonalds in itself was challenging. I needed them to deliver the Happy Meals to the school but we had to coordinate logistics in a big way as their first problem was that it was during lunch time and the branch was super busy doing lunch. Bangsar didn’t want to do it so I had to order them from Pusat Bandar. After some coaxing and an order confirmation, that was 30+ Happy Meals divided into nuggets, cheeseburgers and chicken drumsticks (T1 had asked her friends prior what they wanted) with added Ribena, I thought it was a done deal. Despite agreeing on a price at the McDonalds branch, they over-charged me at the school when I was all busy, hot and bothered!
Furthermore, McDonalds had to deliver the food at a said time because the kids only had 40 minutes for lunch to eat their Happy Meals and oh, McDonalds were just HORRIBLE. Don’t ever get them to deliver a big batch of food because they’re so bloody unreliable, the branch at Pusat Bandar was anyway. Later when I wanted to order more food, they said it would take them at least 2 hours……WTF.
The Happy Meal is usually RM8.10 and then tax on top and a small top up of RM2 for a different drink (i.e. Ribena) but you know what the buggers did? They charged me for the normal Happy Meal with the top up and then charged me separately for the Large sized Ribena each at FULL PRICE!!! So in the end, I ended up paying more than RM500+ for McDonalds. I was so pissed!
But instead of going back to them later to haggle over prices, I just went WTF, just screw it. I didn’t want to deal any more with them lazy ass heads as it would only escalate my own blood pressure. It’s a win-win for them. With such a large order, how do you have the time to check every single Happy Meal to see if they’d gotten it correct? The delivery guy ain’t waiting for you either!
In fact, the delivery boy wasn’t going to help me carry the bulk of Happy Meals to the poolside. And how did he think me and a baby in my arm would have managed that? WTF. But was that part of his scope of works??? His job is just to deliver the goods, right?
I had to beg him to do it. I explained that delivering meant DELIVERING it to where the customer wanted!!!
Teachers arranging the Happy Meals at school.
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The cake lady (bless her) delivered the cake but forgot candles, so she drove out to hunt for candles at the nearby shops. Mind you she had kids with her and it was lunch time so parking was a nightmare. Yet candles are like the QUINTESSENTIAL for any kids birthday, isn’t it???
And because of all the stress we had from McDonalds and then for the lack of candles, the cake lady got stressed fumbling to put her road together on the cake boards. She couldn’t figure out which board went where to make sure the roads joined up! Hahaha….in the end I told her, never mind la….this is Malaysia…..sometimes roads lead to dead ends and nowhere.
But for future reference, I suggested she numbered the boards so she could put the jigsaw together easily.
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Can you spot T1? She was so happy that day, almost made it worthwhile.
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Look at her well chuffed face. I didn’t like the colours on the cake but the kids sure did and that’s the most important thing!
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And here’s me and T2, all stressed, hot and bothered in front of the school pool where the kids were just in front.
The things we do for kids! Shishhhhh!!!
**************************************************************************Who is Mamapumpkin?
Mamapumpkin is a former Design Architect turned Multi-Million Dollar Digital Entrepreneur. She sets out to prove to all that you can have anything and everything that you want; if you have that fire of desire burning within and the drive to work hard. Even better with much love.
Mamapumpkin has not only grown corporate businesses successfully in the past and doubled her salary 5 times over 5 organisations but has grown THREE BUSINESSES to 7 FIGURES within an 8 year period. She now shows others EXACTLY HOW after retiring her own husband from employment. He is now the official dog walker, family driver, chef and THE BEST FATHER to their two girls and THE BEST HUSBAND to the woman who CHOSE HIM!
Mamapumpkin is the girl who has nothing but fights for everything including YOU. She is idealistic in her desire to put unbelievable amounts of money and extrardinary happiness into the lives of good people so we can change the world together believing in happiness for ALL. She strives to impact lives authentically wanting to reduce poverty cycles and enable quality education for all and always supports the voiceless. She believes we can all have a life of our own desires to enable real contribution into the world. But first, one needs to understand what this all means.
A beautiful life without limits.
If you wish to learn how to propel your life forward guaranteed, be brave to take action. Mamapumpkin's purpose is to build people. Her gift is to help them UNCOVER their HIDDEN GIFTS. She operates fairly and always leaves an impression. You either love her or not and she is alright either way.
She is a living testimony that women really can have a lot. Being financially and time free has enabled her to travel the world anytime, anywhere, doing anything with anyone, as she spends most of her days with her children, having fun, supporting others wherever she can. Also having fun.
nothing beats seeing the happy face of the birthday kiddo eh? i really don’t know how you did everything despite being so busy with work and taking care of Tia. You are amazing. Well done mama 🙂
OH WOW you’ve done well mama! I know, there’s NO SUCH thing as a “simple” party. Can’t believe your T1 is 7!! And where has the little baby T2 gone?? No longer a baby!! It’s been a while….
Ok, you have seriously overdone it (again, may I say?). But they are our kids, so what makes them happy, makes US happy right???
wonderful!! salute you again!! wonderful MUM!!
Wow, you set the standard really high. My girl’s first birthday was a simple one among family members, because I was too busy to plan one. Now I feel really bad.
school got pool some more ? WAAA!!! But u have really gone thru so much for a birthday party. NOt easy really…hahaha…might as well get them all to Mc D during one of the weekend, hehehe…