Five and seven

Yes, I'm the mega flukist. All of my kids are born in the same week in November. 

My girls turned five and seven during last week, and my son turns 24 today. 

Isabel and Summer were born two years and two days apart. This means joint birthday parties every year, getting the celebrations done and dusted in one fell swoop.

I can't lay claim to any of these photos. Luckily I had good peops who womanned my camera while I was otherwise occupied for two hours of craziness. 

I did manage to sit down for moments to drink a glass of wine and to scoff some cheese and crackers. How I love cheese.

The cakes were easy this year. Summer was happy with a Shopkins cupcakes, all made from a packet mix.

The day before I had no idea what Isabel's cake was going to be. I baked a buttercake slab and cut out a number seven. Thankfully she was happy and even helped decorate with the sugar sprinkles and wafer flowers. 

All over and done with for another year. 

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Time flies when you're having fun.....

Time does fly when you're having fun. Or life is so batshit cray cray that you are just peddling like crazy to stay above water. So much has been happening lately, I have dedicated a complete lined book to list and cross everything off as it comes, to stay on top of it all.

Mostly it's kept me on top of things although I forgot to make fairy bread for the kids joint birthday party over the weekend, but it didn't matter. There was shitloads of food. We are still eating left overs.

Better to have too much, than not enough. Last year we ran out of party pies, husband was mortified. This year he was mortified that there was about twenty kids in attendance. It was what most were referring to as a class party, which more or less it was.

As most of the kids from Izzys class were invited, mind you mostly the same kids that have been at parties all year, I decided to invite the whole lot. Why the fuck not?

My conscious got the better of me, and I thought that some of the kids in her class had more than likely not been to a party all year. I am all about inclusion and being non discriminative. All kids are precious and deserve to be included.

It's something I want to instill in my kids. To welcome and have tolerance for all types of people, no matter where they sit on the ladder of life. All preconceptions are left at the letter box, until proven otherwise. Geez it felt good.

It was as crazy as all hell. Kids all over the shop. The two hours went by so quickly, helped along by a game of pin the tail on the donkey, pin the tail on the mermaid, and an ingeniously timed game of limbo (surprisingly initiated by the husband), it all went amazingly well.

Brett set the shed up as a disco, with lights and all. We were all buggered at the end of the day, and the day after, but it was memorable for all of us. Lucky we had great friends who took fab photos and helped out with games. It was a lot of organisation and preparing, by me, which didn't go unnoticed by the hubby at the end of the day, which was nice.

I hardly stood still all day, except for lighting the candles and singing the birthday songs, then it was on like donkey kong, dishing up cake. You might as well have called me Jesus. Whipping cake out of my arse to the masses. It is written. One day, you mark this down as legend, in two thousand years, people will be talking about this party and my saintly, almost godly endeavours to entertain a class of boisterous kids with only my wits and an oven full of pastry goods.

Of course I kid, but by god did I turn cordial and party bags into wine that night!

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Muddy puddles and snow balls - birthday nibbles

My girls turned the ripe old ages of three and five, a week ago. 

Summer wanted a Frozen cake, and Isabel, a Peppa Pig cake. 

Isabel's cake was easy. I made the same cake she had for her third birthday. At first she asked for a Barbie cake, and then changed her mind and wanted Peppa Pig. 

Summer's cake was a square chocolate cake, covered with buttercream icing and edged with white chocolate. I did order Frozen figurines for this cake, but they never arrived from China in time. Of course, a month later they are still not here. 

I did find these 3D printable dolls from this fab website. They did the job and aren't too hard to put together. It's the cutting out that is the hard bit.

Seeing it was a joint Frozen(slash)Peppa Pig party I also made some absolutely delicious nibbles to go with the theme.

The snowballs, were made from the cut off pieces of cake, left over after cutting out the Peppa Pig cake. 

I crumbled the cake, and then added coconut milk. Add the coconut milk a bit at a time, until the cake crumbs can be moulded into a ball and hold that shape. 

I refrigerated the balls while I melted white chocolate in the microwave at 50%. Then coated the balls, sprinkling with dessicated coconut and then leaving them to set on baking paper in the fridge. I used a skewer to hold the balls while I dunked them in the chocolate. Chuck the chocolate back in the microwave if I starts to get less runny while you are on the job. 

You could use any type of cake, any type of liquid. Think fruitcake and grog(hick!), or chocolate cake and orange juice. Banana cake and coconut milk. OMG. You could use other types of chocolate too. 

I found this recipe on Taste for these little fellas. I left out the fellas bit, and just made the biscuit and chocolate bit. I even heard one of the dads comment on how 'wicked' the muddy puddles were. They were pretty awesome!

I didn't have the right tray, but just put the biscuits in the oven on a flat tray and then moulded them, cupped in my tea towelled hand and making a bowl shape with my fingers. Not hard, but oh so yummy.

-----o0o-----

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