Happy Muslim Mama: First Summer Party of the Year

We don’t really celebrate birthdays in my family, but Kooky Little Sister is always trying to find ways to get the family together, so she threw a summer party.  We had a lovely, food-filled, windy, colourful day.  I made her a banner (more pics to follow):

Mum always has fresh flowers around the house, so we carted some of them outside. I and Kooks are both fans of dessert tables, but didn’t get round to buying any sweets for one this year, so we had to make do with whatever we could find. My cakes (that’s a napkin with cake pictures underneath if the picture looks confusing): There was plenty of yummy food thanks to mum, including Dahi Bhalle (dumplings in yoghurt with spices, chickpeas, cucumber and tomato). Minced lamb samosa’s and chicken spring rolls: Salad: Fasionista’s yummy sandwiches (chicken, mayo, carrot and cucumber – recipe to follow at some stage): Mum’s tandoori chicken legs: Mango, strawberry and melon which went down a treat.  My boy’s grabbed most of the mango and I think I polished off most of the strawberries. Kooks also hired a bouncy castle which the kids went mental over.  We all had a turn, one of Kooks friends even managed to get our usually sedate and proper mum onto it for a bit.  No-one managed to match Gorgeous’ staying power though.  He was on there for hours, including eating on it, tandoori chicken leg in hand:
Although the afternoon was not injury free: one of my little cousin’s flew off and missed the mat, hitting the concrete and getting some nasty bruises to show for it.  Little Lady managed to break the straps on her maxi dress and carried on jumping in leggings and t-shirt.  Another cousin tripped and feel with his glasses flying one way and his mobile the other.   Little Man in contrast sneaked off inside to watch Scooby Doo on his own for a bit:
Alhamdulillah it was nice to dress up in a halal environment, let the kids loose without worrying (boy did they sleep well that night) and enjoy mum’s cooking.