Raja Khalid Khairaldin's first birthday party!

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY OUR DEAREST LOVE, KHALID KHAIRALDIN!
Love, hugs and kisses always and forever, Abah & Mommy

*click on pictureSSSSS to enlarge*

So, as you'd already know by now, it's Khairaldin's birthday on the 16th of June. We had a mini celebration with the family on his 'actual' birthday. I made Soto and just bought an off the shelf cake. Since his birthday was on a weekday, we had to rush the celebration as my nephew and niece had school the next day. We settled down by 9p.m. Small and simple. He loved it! (You could tell from the video that I'll upload soonest, Insha'Allah). When we sang the birthday song to him, he actually hummed as if he's singing it too! He was so happy and smiley the whole time. I know he doesn't understand a thing but somehow he knows the spotlight was on him. He was also being demanding all day! It was after all his day, so we, sorry I, gave in to him endlessly. :)
At first I planned to have his BBQ party on the 20th of June since it's a weekend. But my parents had some events to attend to so I changed it to the week after-27th June. My plan was to only invite the family and my cousin from Manchester. But my dad insisted to invite the neighbours as they are Muslims and since it's BBQ, it'll be rude not to. So we did. The number of people was still within our budget because my cousins + family had to cancel at the very last minute.
I had a rather ambitious plan on wanting to bake his cake! You see, the only cake I know how to bake is Moist Chocolate Cake. I got the recipe from my senior. Thanks Kak Nad! So on Saturday, I went to my brother's place to use his oven. Our oven is a bit weird so I opted to use theirs as I don't want to ruin the cake (at least that's my excuse). When I arrived their place, they were out. Confidently I set the oven to its setting. All done, mixture sorted. Started baking. I had the Number 1 cake idea for quite a while. It just looks so easy to do. Well, for someone who bakes once in a blue moon, everything seems haywire and difficult!!!! :|
I needed 3 rectangle shaped cake tin since that's how the number will be designed. Instead of using one cake mixture and separate them into 3, I did one cake mixture into one cake tin!!! Obviously when it raised, it overflowed because rectangle cake tins are just too small in height and depth! Also the mixture measurement was for normal round cake tin. So like it or not, I had to throw that to waste. I made another mixture and this time separated them into 3 containers. Alhamdulillah it raised perfectly. Now, by this time my bro + SIL arrived home. Little did I know, the setting for the oven was wrong!!!! I set it to GRILL setting instead of oven. Hence the cake being baked just the top and bottom not the inside. Setting changed. All ok. Let it set. Alhamdulillah, all in all it was perfect. Except the top and bottom bit became cookie like rather than cake! My li'l brother loved it though. He had 3 huge slices! Most of it was only just being served to him. Don't know whether he's just being nice or what. LOL!
My sister in law also baked some cupcakes. I wanted Elmo cuppies because that's the only cartoon character that Khairaldin knows and is really fond of. And surprise surprise, when the cupcakes were being served, he actually sang the Elmo song!!!!! We were too shocked! So I told my sister in law that her design was definitely spot on since Khairaldin knew what is was straight out of the box!!! For a 1 year old, he's really clever, Masha'Allah. :) I'd recommend my SIL's cuppies if you're living in the UK. Not being biased, but it's goood! And, she's wayy creative! :)
Alhamdulillah, all the food was enough and there was not much wastage throughout. Everyone finished their portions and leftovers were packed for my brothers and neighbours. Alhamdulillah all went well. The preparation was no doubt hectic! I had to run from one place to another to buy stuff. Iskandar was down with UTI, so had to rush him to the hospital at 3am on Wednesday. From then on I had to run errands on my own but thank god for having my Mom to also tag along on few occasions. :) We ladies, managed to do it ourselves.
Well, the highlight of the event was the bouncy castle! Since Summer is only for 1 week in the UK we thought we might as well make full use of it :D. We rented a bouncy castle and on that particular day we held the party, the castle was on Summer Sale! So, we really saved a LOT! It was great! Everyone's inner child was brought out on the day and as for Khairaldin, he didn't like it much. However, when we lay him down in the castle, he could easily doze off. He's never trained to be rocked to sleep, so that was new for him and he liked it. So, eventually he enjoyed it as much as we did. But really, the bouncy castle was more for us than him. It'd be so boring if we didn't have the bouncy castle.

All in, we had major fun!!! But doing it again is definitely out of the question (at least for now). Probably would just hire the bouncy castle for fun. Hahaha That would be so much fun!

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