IT'S been a busy time in our house.

Matthew will be christened on Sunday. We've got more than 70 people coming from around the country, a mixture of family and friends.

We had to give the final numbers to the caterer recently, but it's been a chore pinning people down so they will actually say, yes, we'll be there.

Last weekend was Emily's fifth birthday (where's the time gone?). She had a party for all her classmates and friends she's known since birth at The Jungle, a soft play area next to LA Bowl on Winwick Road.

As the youngsters bounced, dived, tumbled, crashed and flung themselves about the place, Matthew twitched and wriggled, clearly desperate to go bombing down a slide. He's only eight months old.

He's like that at home: you put him on the carpet and he's off, like a zealous commando. The other day he left his trousers behind him, like a snake shedding its skin. So, it's dungarees for the wee feller.

When it came to the food, the children sat down to their sandwiches, and we had the awful moment where we realised there were not enough plates of sandwiches and cakes.

Had we given the wrong numbers? Had the organiser messed up?

No, we had a gatecrasher -- all of three or four -- lurking in the corner, his mitts hovering over the butties.

The lad had presumably got carried away with the excitement in the ball pool and followed the line of children queueing up for lunch.

We felt awful asking him to leave. But it was either that or one of Emily's friends going hungry.

As we were leaving, I spied the little lad sitting down with another party.

So I figured he'd either sat down with the wrong party earlier, or he was a serial gatecrasher.

* Have you any funny stories about children's parties? Share them with us here.