Crocodile themed second birthday party

Before Isaac, Nathan and I would attend our toddler nieces' and nephew's lavish birthday parties. We would look at the number of people, the money invested in balloons and food, the time invested in invitations and decorations, shake our heads and vow that if/when we had kids, we'd keep it simple. Fast forward to Isaac's second birthday and of course I did anything but.

Isaac's actual birthday falls on the 24th December, but the past two years we have had his birthday party mid January to avoid Christmas conflicts. As most of Isaac's friends are born in November, my thoughts turned to birthday season a few months ahead of time. This is a double edged sword - I had plenty of time to prepare and plan but I also based the theme on Isaac's November obsession - crocodiles. Whilst Isaac's obsessions are passionate, they are not necessarily long-lived and by the time December started we had well and truly moved onto trains (in particular Thomas the Tank Engine). Nonetheless, we had planned a pool party around crocodiles and that is what we went with.

Isaac's birthday party date ended up falling smack bang in the middle of the Brisbane flood clean-up weekend. With a fair amount of angst (and failing ice supplies) we decide to go ahead with the party as we thought a bit of joy wouldn't go astray.

For anyone else thinking of a crocodile theme, here are some tips:

• A foil crocodile balloon was bought online for $9, and then filled up with helium at the local party store for $6. This is much, much cheaper than buying the whole thing from party stores, which would have been around $25.

• I made little crocodile pegs to top brown paper bags. These served as the party treat bags. I simply spray painted wooden pegs green, added googly eyes (they have to be the smallest you can get), added teeth with white out and placed cardboard ridges on top. You could add magnets to the back of the pegs, so that they become fridge magnets to hold artworks etc. Pegs and paper bags are dirt cheap, so this is a really cute cheap way to make party bags.

• His gorgeous cake was created by Janelle from Big Cake, Little Cake - . http://www.facebook.com/bigcakelittlecake (Brisbane only)

• I made a big crocodile for the centre of the table out of egg cartons, and he held lollies and chocolates.

• I also made some little crocodiles out of cardboard to hang and place on the tables.

• The invitations were made out of cardboard and in the shape of crocodile, whose mouth you opened to read the details.

• My mum and sister made gorgeous little cupcakes, topped with lolly crocodiles swimming on blue icing.

Do I think Isaac and his friends appreciated all of this? Maybe, maybe not - Isaac certainly loved the cake! But at the end of the day, it's nice to indulge in a bit of art and craft and I had a ball making and planning it all. And after all, isn't this kind of thing one of the perks of parenthood?