BIRTHDAY ALLEY

It may be the beginning of April, but something on the horizon lingers.

Birthday Alley.

In this household there is a one month period of frenzy. William's birthday is late May, while Julia's falls 10 days later at the beginning of June.

In this day and age kids parties appear to have taken on a life of their own. You can disappear down a rabbit warren of pinterest, instagram until it is all quite overwhelming.

While I am not immune from the tantalising photos adorning social media, there comes a point when you have to get a grip. This is a children's party. For the most part they come to see their friends and eat cake. I'm sure there is a lesson in this...

To inspire me into creation, I thought I might share some of our birthday's from previous years. Hopefully you'll find something to inspire you too.


William's 5th BMX Bandit Birthday

One of my favourite to date.

On arrival the kids were given a party bag which contained streamers, stickers and other pieces which they used to decorate their bikes.

We then had a parade (within 5 seconds three kids had fallen off...there was screaming and tears...and that was just me).

I didn't have a huge amount of time in the lead up, so turned to the incredible Karinne at Glamour & Grace who provided the back drop, cupcake toppers, bag tags, bottle wraps and personalised cards.

Julia's 3rd Fairy Princess Party

As a young girl I never dreamt of being a Fairy Princess. If my mother ever deigned adorn my hair with bows, they would be ripped out....along with fistfuls of blonde ringlets.

I've been gifted a daughter who is determined that none of us miss out on the deluxe Princess experience.

Lucky for us we have Fairies on speed-dial in this household and the day was more than a little magical. 

Julia's 2nd Birthday - Butterfly & Cloud Dream Cakes

I realise "double cakes" are crazy but when you have children in daycare they are also a necessity. 

This Butterfly still gives me nightmares. 

William's 4th Birthday - Spiderman Cakes

Question. Is there anything better than a superhero cake? 

Answer. Two superhero cakes!? 

The second of the two cakes took me about 30 minutes to ice and turned out brilliantly. Small win. If you don't have children and can't understand one day you will. Oh you will. 

Julia's 1st Birthday - Wish Bear

Nothing says Happy 1st Birthday like a Care Bear. 

Nothing!

William's 3rd Birthday - Octonauts

If you're not familiar with the Octonauts I suggest you look them up. We were first introduced to this seafaring gang back in 2012 while living in the UK. 

I was in a pinch and the Gup X turned out to be perfectly delicious. 

William's 2nd Birthday - Thomas the Tank Engine

I think I was even more excited than Will, that his 2nd birthday cake turned out so well!

William's 1st Birthday - Rufus

My sister-in-law and I have fond memories of decorating this cake close to midnight the day before Will's 1st birthday party. 

So many lessons were learned in the making of this cake. 

So many fond memories. 

PS: This should go without saying but I wanted to add it anyway. Most of the above pictures are as shot out of my camera. I am simply working at posting. Not prettying. Be kind.

NESTING...IT'S TASTIER THAN YOU MIGHT THINK

Any holiday spent away from friends and family is a mixed blessing, although there's few challenges chocolate won't rise to...including a pang of home sickness.

We returned from a quick break in Edinburgh just in time for Easter which, as it happened, was one of the coldest on record (imagine a balmy high of 1 degree then drop and give me -10 over night). Now, I'm rather partial to a crisp spring day, but even I have to draw the line at subzero Easter Hunts.

Fortunately for us our wonderful Australian friends had everything under control and arranged some considerably more suitable (and comfortable) in door activities for the Chunky Monkey. In appreciation I decided to make them an Easter cake...short notice...with only the ingredients in the cupboard. Love a challenge.

I'd seen this Ombre Wave Cake over at www.thegirlinspired.com a few weeks back and decided to give it...or something like it...a crack (as an aside this woman's propensity for incredible crafts leaves me quivering with both excitement and inadequacy in equal meassure)

Below is attempt one. I went for a "nest" look rather than structured waves and had to rely on the limited piping devices I had at hand so the finish wasn't quite what I was hoping for.  This said it was thoroughly enjoyed by all so clearly I got the bottom line right.

Hopefully you had a great and safe Easter break, where ever you are in the world - I'd love to see what you got up to.

With love

Jacq

THE HEATHROW INJECTION

Today I said 'Hello' to Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream and farewell to my waistline.

The tastebuds launched an assault attack on my common sense. I ate like a woman possessed. Possessed by chunks of cookie dough nestled in Vanilla ice cream. It wasn't pretty. It was a bloody disaster.

I'm staring at the fall out. There's quarter of a punnett missing. That's about 1 litre of ice cream happily making its home in my temple gullet. Ouch.

I don't think I'll make a habit out of saying this over the next 12 months, but I sure am glad it hasn't made the journey to our shores.

In other (less dairy consuming) news...

We've just returned from 3 days in London. So many stories and photos that I'll share once I shed my ice-cream headache.

Jacq

xo

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Photoshop...if it can make a burger look this great imagine what can it do for you?! 


Check out this awesome promo from McDonald's. Love their work:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/7138762/McDonalds-reveals-burger-tricks


PS - Hope that's Fonterra cheese ;)

PHOTOGRAPHY CHALLENGE: WEEK 5 - FOOD

Two simple lesson's learned this week:

1) Check the weather forecast (at all) before heading away for a long weekend. I doubt Mary Poppins herself would be excited by the prospect of being trapped in a single room garage with small children. Something tells me it would take more than a spoonful of sugar to make THAT medicine go down...

2) My eyes are bigger than my belly...literally. I've decided to embark on a few "challenges" throughout this year. I thought chosing the topic of food would be a great way to ease me along the journey. More fool me. It took until about Wednesday before I actually started thinking "outside the square". That said, loading up these pictures has made me hungry....

Theme for this week...Happiness Is - join in if you'd like, link up here.

Here's the results...what are your thoughts?

DOMESTIC BLISS: KITCHEN TREATS

Every now and then you stumble over a cook book that makes you feel like a regular Nigella in the cullinary department. Following hot on the heels of my "Vanilla Beings" (check out Cabin Fever: Kitchen Treats if you're curious ) I turned to my trusty copy of babies & toddlers good food when looking for a healthy snack food to add to our picnik basket over the weekend.

Rice-Paper Vegie Rolls caught my attention primarily because the picture in the book looked fancy and frankly I wanted to show off. The bravado quickly wore off when I laid all the ingredients out on the bench and started entertaining the idea of actually rolling these all into edible packaged proportions.

That aside once I got in the "roll" of things (couldn't resist...sorry) it all came together surprisingly easily. While I'm still a few attempts off perfecting the store bought look it was widely agreed (between a family of three) that these will become a lunch box regular. For bigger people I highly recommend accompanying with soy sauce to really realise true awesomeness.

I have to apologise for the single photo I have of these. I fully intended to take pictures of the making process but it turned out far messier (beetroot is not a camera's friend) and frankly made it all look a lot more complicated than it actually was.

Want to try something different? Enjoy - let me know how you get on, I'm keen to hear any variations!

Rice-Paper Vegie Rolls

25g thin vermicelli (for mine I used one portion of egg noodles which had the same effect)

2 tbsp smooth peanut butter (I substitued Heinz Seriously Good Aioli...perfection in a squeegy bottle)

Rice Paper

1/2 Avocado

1/2 Carrott grated finely

1/4 Fresh beetroot grated finely

1 green onion, sliced finely

To make:

• Place vermicelli in small heatproof bowl & cover with boiling water. Stand until just tender; drain
• Cut noodles into 4cm lengths; combine in small bowl with peanut butter
• Place 1 sheet of rice paper in medium bowl of warm water until just softened
• Lift out carefully; place on board.
• Place layer of noodle mixture in centre of rice paper, top with avocado, carrot, beetroot & onion
• Roll to enclose, folding in ends
• Repeat with remaining rice paper sheets and filling ingredients
• Serve with Dipping Sauce
• Hide from children - devour at will