YIONEUNOICHIEIN1

Yah, the title may look gibberish but the super observant can quickly discipher the meaning behind it all.
Cutie Charlotte is 1 year old!!
A year ago, Cutie was torturing Darling inside her tummy. She refused to come out on her calculated 9 June birthday and decided to stay 2 days more. It happens that Charlotte’s birthday is the sum of Darling’s and my birthday.. Darling’s birthday is 6 Dec while mine is 5 May, so Charlotte decides to come out on the 11th. Lolz. Darling had to go in and out of the delivery suite a few times, undergo a few rounds of the uncomfortable cervix assessment and the anxiety of childbirth before Cutie decided to make a grand entrance. And what a REAL GRAND entrance involving almost everyone on call that night at the delivery suite! She wants everyone to be present on her birthday, so decided to make it a CODE GREEN emergency caesarian entrance, getting nurses, gynaes, neonatologies and paediatricians all around to receive her! A year on…. she is still as attention seeking as the start! Haha. She grabs the attention of everyone with her presence, be it in a good or bad way. She can amaze you with her motor skills (suddenly standing up when you least expected her to, and then walk towards you unaided!), she can suddenly utter gibberish and start clapping when she sees something interesting, she can dash towards a corner of the room only to pick up a strand of hair to lick, she can cover her mouth with her little hands and break out in a howling cry that can make you think she was trained by a Korean drama actress. Yup, that’s Our Cutie Charlotte and she turns 1 year old!!!

We decided to have a celebration for Cutie a few days before her actual birthday as her birthday is on a Thursday. Darling has been planning for her birthday party in March and April, spending hours browsing through numerous websites and images of 1-year-old birthday parties happening in Singapore for ideas of theme and venue. She shortlisted this cafe which fits the bill of being in a central location and “specialises in birthday parties for babies and kids” and it won awards being a child-friendly restaurant. EatPlayLove Cafe is a cosy cafe situated in Kampung Glam area, near to Bugis, located in the Aliwal Arts Center. It’s a Thai-fusion cafe with vintage decorations and dedicated areas of the cafe for kids to do craftwork while parents dine. We didn’t personally visit the cafe and the FB pics were all we had to decide this IS the cafe we want to hold Cutie’s important milestone birthday party.

Cafe settled, next up is the theme. “Sesame Street” was the initial plan since Cutie loves her Big Bird and Elmo hand puppets so much and there were so many kids party photos with the Sesame Street Theme. So we spent a few weeks browsing through google images, getting ideas on decorations etc before we felt that Sesame Street may be too “common” as a theme. We wanted something more personal, more special, more Charlotte. So I decided to put a search on Disney princesses. I wrote down a list of Disney princesses and decided to analyse each princess’s characteristics and see which one will fit our Cutie Baby the most. It is a very interesting research I must say, haha as I realize that each Disney Princess does indeed has 1-2 unique characteristics. There’s a few comparisons online done by other like-minded people which I can look through and it makes my job in searching for a fitting theme easier. Alice emerged as the leader with many characteristics similar to our Cutie Baby! Alice is a curious little girl who loves to explore the world, sometimes not realizing the dangers involved. She has no fear of the unknown and the unknown made her more curious to explore and experiment. She is rebellious of sorts, going against public opinion, wanting to do things differently. She can be feisty, going against authority, even speaks back at the Queen! Alice dares to try weird concoctions and food, resulting in her growing and shrinking, while Cutie will dash towards scraps of paper, strands of hair and never hesistate to put them into her small mouth and shutting it tight. There were elements of Alice in Wonderland that we find coincidental to Cutie as well, such as cats and 10/6 on the Mad Hatter’s Hat. Alice loves Cats and there’s also a Chesire Cat that she talks to a lot in the story. Charlotte, likewise, will get all excited when she sees the stray cats at the void decks. The price of the Mad Hatter’s Green hat is 10/6 (ten shillings and sixpence) while Cutie’s birthday is 11/6, the 11th of June. The Alice in Wonderland theme fitted Charlotte almost too perfectly we feel, so decided on this theme!

Theme settled, the next important thing is the cake! Again, Darling is the one with the connections to this wonderful artisan baker whom her friend engaged. She was impressed by her friend’s child’s birthday cake and wanted something as amazing, if not MORE spectacular! The cake has a moving component, something we though we will only see on Food Network’s Amazing Cake challenge. Well, this friend of hers managed to get her child a moving cake. How can Charlotte get something inferior?? Cutie deserves the best! So we decided to engage Jill Patiss to be our Cake designer. This will be her first Alice in Wonderland themed cake as well, so it’s equally exciting for her. We had to come up with important elements of the story to be incorporated into the cake. Darling searched the web, finding similar designs to show Jill Patiss, hoping to inspire her creativity. We never saw the cake’s design blueprint and the first time we saw the cake was at the actual birthday party itself!

EatPlayLove Cafe is also doing the Alice in Wonderland themed party design for the very first time as well! So we had to come up with the colour theme we wanted to show the cafe as a sample. We brainstormed some designs by looking at similar parties done elsewhere and consolidated the ideas to give to the cafe. Gayle was the person in charge of coming up with the designs of our ideas and she did not disappoint. She tried to incorporate everything we asked for. The colours, the food labels, drink labels, banner designs, quote cards etc, hoping to make this party a success as well. We paid for the dessert table and decoration package and everything will be set up for us before the TEA PARTY started. This saves us a lot of stress, because I wanted us to enjoy the party together with Cutie and not to get stressed over unnecessary things. The final design was amazing!

Pictures speak a thousand words… …
The birthday dress was bought during one of the EXPO baby fairs and is very well matched with the headband and ribbon! Lucky Darling is good with matching colours… … if I was the head designer, it will be fashion disaster!

Birthday Girl getting ready for the Party!

The cafe has done many birthday parties over the years and Tristan is very fast in setting up the macarons, cupcakes, stands and arrow banners. They even have colour matched table decorations and balloons. The next picture will showcase the details of the decorations, matching the Charlotte’s ONE-derland Theme.
“DRINK ME”, “EAT ME” are classics from the story and we loved how the colours combined to give a cheerful vibrant atmosphere.

Gummies Tier. Personalized Birthday card. Water with the “Drink Me” labels. Cupcakes with the “Eat Me” labels. Giant flasks to hold mashmallows and Cookies.

No Disney cartoon has as many memorable quotes as Alice in Wonderland, so I selected these few quotes, 1 from each character of the story, to make the themed decoration more complete. Darling was very satisfied with the end result.

Memorable Cute Quotes

The centerpiece of the dessert table is Cutie’s Birthday Cake. It makes a superb dessert table decoration PERFECT. The cake is an amazing piece of art! The detailed elements of the Story can all be seen on the cake. The cake is such a joy to watch! Every part of the cake is filled with details that it’s almost IMPOSSIBLE not to have a Jawdrop reaction when you look at it. The girl on the cake was supposed to be Alice but we decided to let Charlotte own the cake by having her own figurine on the cake! Notice the dress of the girl’s figurine?? YES!!! It’s modelled after Cutie’s dress. Darling has sent a pic of Cutie’s dress to Jill Patiss so that she can create an almost perfect replica of the dress. We replaced the 10/6 on the Mad Hatter’s hat to 11/6, to reflect on Cutie’s actual Birthday. There is a revolving Tea party table as a cake topper with miniature cakes, teacups as well as a teapot. We were told that the entire cake is edible, except the battery operated revolving tea party topper. Lolz. We absolutely love this cake. Darling is absolutely delighted that this shall be the best cake amongst all the 1-year-old birthday parties she attended, and it will stay number 1 for a very long time we feel.

Mr Rabbit, Mad Hatter’s Hat, Caterpillar, Chesire Cat, Charlotte, directional signs, complete with a revolving tea party table cake topper.

Wonder how it all looks when pieced together?

The final setup of Charlotte’s ONE-derland Tea Party

The Tea Party is a success! Kids were entertained with the crafts corner. Adults have ample tables and seats to have a chit chat, catching up over yummy food. They can even have an eyefeast on the POWER cake. Almost everyone has a group photo together with Cutie Charlotte and brought home some cakes and cookies. Darling looks very very very happy and satisfied with the ONE-derland party and we get to keep all the decorations. Next time when Cutie is old enough to have her own room, we can use them to decorate the room.

On Cutie’s actual day birthday, we ordered a cake for the infant class to celebrate with the other classmates and her teachers. A pity we could not take leave to join her but teachers were kind enough to give us soft copies of the photos taken during the birthday celebrations.

Josiah celebrations

Cutie even had a birthday gift from the school!

Birthday Gifts from School and her favorite teacher Ms Angie

We also held another sing-song cake-cutting ceremony together with Darling’s family. The tart is super yummy!! It’s supposed to be a “snickers” Tart and it tastes exactly like a Snickers Bar! Lolz, super delicious. The cupcakes are Mint-Chocolate, which tastes like the “After-Eight” Mint chocolate.

Mini Birthday celebration on 11 June

She drank from a bottle called “DRINK ME”
And up she grew so tall.
Grow Curiouser and Curiouser everyday our Cutie Charlotte.

Alice: “This is impossible!”
Mad Hatter: “Only if you believe in it.”

Believe in yourself Cutie Baby and You can achieve Great Things.
This is a land full of Wonder, Mystery and Danger our dear Cutie Charlotte, but Mama and PaPa will be with you every step of the way.

Happy Birthday Our Cutie Baby

Well, since my darling took a while to decipher the title…I shall provide the answer. Haha
YIONEUNOICHIEIN1
It’s the way to say “1” in different languages…
YI = mandarin
ONE = English
UNO = Spanish / Italian… coincidentally UN = French
ICHI = Japanese
EIN = German

Well, even more coincidentally, they all happen to be from the countries we have travelled to before!