Just a bit of birthday baking

It’s birthday season at our place. Our four children’s birthdays fall in a little clump in or close to winter – one each in May, June, July, and August. These are two of the cakes I baked. The grand and sparkly one by order of my second baby girl who cannot possibly be 17! And the cute echidna cake for my 14 year old boy. It makes me so happy that he’s not too old for animal cakes yet. Mind you is anyone every really too old for animal cakes?!

Little Red Riding Hood Birthday Party

Little Red Riding Hood drawing ©thesedaysarefew.

A slightly belated birthday party for Milly’s birthday to coincide with Into the Woods Junior – We took five little 6 year olds to the theatre after a yummy morning tea and cake. One of the guests was gluten free so I did my best to accommodate her with fairy floss, and gluten free marshmallows, biscuits, and fruit with dipping chocolate. It was all served up at the small table with a cute table cloth and the most adorable red riding hood plates (egg and toast plates but perfect for little ones as dippping plates!) They were so sweet at their little table.

To kick it all off, Laura did a gorgeous invitation – I’m pretty impressed with such lovely artwork from a 13yo. I don’t seem to have taken a photo of the party birthday cake, oops, but this is the family one we had earlier in the week.

Party Time

Last weekend we decided to kill two birds with one stone and have Liam’s 8th birthday party and Milly’s 4th birthday party all in one day.
Hers was in the morning and his was at 3pm.
Laura and I spent the week cooking up a storm and making things like little Gingerbread men to give as party favours.
 I borrowed a big parachute from the toylibrary for the kids to play with, and both 4 year olds and 8 year olds had lots of fun with it.Laura did face painting for the little ones, and a friend of hers came and painted nails.
They played pass the parcel and what’s the time Mr wolf?
For the little ones’ party we had lots of little patty cakes – pink ones with white hearts on them, tiny flower marshmallow cakes, colour iced ones with Tinkerbell decals, and fairy bread cut out in the shape of a heart.
They had a big punch bowl with apple and blackcurrant juice and lemonade punch in it, and elegant pink glasses to drink from (we only had one spill!) Milly’s cake was a mermaid reclining on a rock – made from an op-shopped Bratz dolly on top of a couple of layered cakes.The children took home gingerbread men, an animal balloon, a little flask of bubble mixture and a candy bracelet watch.

The rowdy 8 year olds in the afternoon were a shock to the system after the delightful 4 and 5 year olds, but we kept them busy with things like the chocolate eating game, musical newspapers, and the parachute. Their food was movie themed – little containers of popcorn popped in my air-popper (health quotient negated with lots of butter and salt) with ribbons tied around them.
We had mini hotdogs made from cheerio sausages in little buffet rolls, cans of creaming soda and lemonade, lollies, and ice cream cones with choctops (ice magic) or fizzy rocks on top.
Liam asked for a Mario cake, which I had a lot of fun making. The kids took home gingerbread men, popcorn, a balloon if they wanted one, andglow sticks.Happy Birthday to my lovely Liam and Milly!!

Hansel and Gretel eat your heart out

It mightn’t be sewing but it felt creative. Laura, Liam and I assembled and decorated a Gingerbread house this afternoon. Never having melted sugar before, I was pleased that it worked well and glued it together very easily. I had to dig around in the draw for 10 minutes unearthing the piping bag which has been used about twice in 10 years, then it split anyway and I realised too late that I should have iced the sides before constructing of the house – oh well……. so only the top got iced but the smarties made up for it!! We used the extra icing as ‘snow’ around the house, and the kids had great fun putting chicco men in the snow and making footsteps for them. We ate the house as dessert and when the roof caved in from too many bits broken off, Liam proclaimed it an earthquake and said all the chicco men had been killed (!) and he knocked them flat LOL.

Laura has also been doing some sewing of her own – putting together a ballerina doll kit and a teddy bear kit she got from one of her grandmas for Christmas. She did the doll almost all on her own and the teddy completely on her own!!