Planning a super hero party

So Alex turns 6 in just under 4 weeks!

Not sure where those years have gone!!

Anyway I must be mad as the invite have gone out to 15 children saying to come here for a party at our house on his birthday! Ouch, wine will be drank after it! We just couldn't afford a 'proper' party and there is no way I am spending £200+ on a party even if I had the money! Luckily Alex did only want people at ours anyway.

I am starting to panic slightly on how I will actually cope with it, I have roped in my Mum (an expert with children after working in a nursery for many years!) and have told James he has to be home to help too!

So a house party like this needs much forward planning, he wants to have it Avengers/superhero themed so pinterest was my first stop for ideas!

Lots of them are from American sites where they have huge house and back yards with lovely weather, obviously a party in November doesn't have that luxury so I had to be quite selective!

Here's some of my ideas I have found so far on my board.

I think to begin with I will get them to decorate a mask, as you can quite often be waiting for people to turn up which makes party games slightly more difficult. I just need to decide whether to use some of my felt supplies, or just stick to card...

Then I think I will do 'pin the star on captain America's sheild' or pin 'Batman's logo on his body'.

Before food I think I might snatch this idea I found, pass the kryptonite (green glow stick) and then whoever ends up with it gets out and then gets ready to sit down for food. It also saves buying a present for pass the parcel too which is a winner in my eyes!

There are some fab other games too but not sure I can cope with them with lots of kiddies in a confined space we shall see, Alex wants to play musical statues etc too so I am sure we will.

Alex wants an iron man cake, I have discouraged him wanting the full iron man so he has agreed to just have the face...must save I am a little nervous about doing it so any tips greatly received!!

I may make this punch box so they can grab their party bags before they leave in a bit of a hulk smash kind of way...

Alex turns 5!

Wow I am sure I say it every birthday, but 5 years!? Already!?

Well Alex you have turned from a Disney Cars loving boy to a Lego obsessed 5 year old, fuelled by the Lego City Undercover Wii game we got you for Christmas last year. Due to that your love of Police and 'arresting' people in role play have played a major part this year too!

You still love your cars, and can often be found making up all sorts of stories with them on the lounge floor (of course they lurk about the other areas of the house too)! This is made even sweeter when Sam copies you in your play.

At the start of the year you weren't too fussed with superheros but how that has changed! You love Marvels and know more of their names than I'm sure I ever will! In most of your play you love to make up scenarios which include your favourite characters. Of course this love of them has greatly increased as Lego have Marvels and superhero games and Lego sets which has given you more fuel to the fire!

Considering you have always had a dislike to dressing up I was really surprised to see you happy to wear your Spiderman outfit on your birthday yesterday-even if it was a bit of a challenge to get you to wear the mask just for a photo.

It's been a whirl-wind year. You enjoyed a fantastic holiday to Florida which you loved and still mention on and off now-your memory is still amazing with the small details you remember-you walked behind me at Mummy's and Daddy's wedding, and you started school without a problem at all (apart from that one day after half term...!).

There was no doubt that this year's birthday cake had to include Lego or Superheros, I chickened out of one idea and decided to keep it simple and stress free-thankfully you were very happy with the result. This smile made it worth it!

When you are lovely, you really are a joy to be around, we just need to work on that really short temper and attitude you are developing at the moment-I don't think that the apple falls too far from the tree there though-as for the whinging I really hope that comes to an end soon!

You have done really well in your first few months at school, and have made so many new friends, it seems like you are very liked there and I am so pleased you have settled in well. You are a kind and caring brother to Sam, he looks up to you much and wants to be just like you and be playing your games and toys whether you like it or not, Sam always has some of the best giggles just for you and I love it when you play your silly games with each other.

Happy 5th Birthday Alex! *

Now to make things for the Lego themed party next Sunday!

*behind on this post it was actually last Thurs!

How to make a children's train cake

So you may have seen that it was Sam's 1st birthday this Monday.

I made him this train cake to celebrate

And here's how to make it:

1.Bake 2/3 loaf cakes (sadly my first two didn't rise-had I used my electric mixer they would have turned out like my 3rd in which case 2 would have been enough)!

2. Keep the largest loaf for the front of the train. 

3. Cut the other loafs so that 2/3rds are for the carriage and the smaller pieces are for the driver's cab in the train, cut the ends off also so that they are straight-I used these pieces for the funnel afterwards

4. Place on cake board (or a clear glass chopping board like I have used here). Sandwich together with chocolate butter icing, and cover the cake all over too.

5. Decorate with biscuits and chocolate of your choice, I had smarties, chocolate raisins, chocolate digestives, party rings and jazzies. 

6. Write either on the board or the cake if you want to with icing, I wrote 'Choo choo Sam is 1'.

7. Blow out the candles and enjoy!

Alex's Disney Cars themed party

Last Friday I had Alex's NCT friends over for a party at home, as we couldn't afford a party elsewhere/have a small home unfortunately we couldn't have preschool friends over too.

As the last few months in particular Alex has been mad on Disney Cars it was quite obvious the party would be loosely themed on this!

As usual I had a good look for ideas on Pinterest, obviously there were a few ideas that were a bit wasted on a child's birthday party in my opinion, but I selected the simple ones!

Alex's 4th birthday board

The cake

I knew I had to make some sort of lightening McQueen cake for Alex at his request! I didn't have a plan as such, I must admit I usually don't and wing it a bit when it comes to cakes. I knew I wanted to make it white and black like the chequered race flags, so did this on the bottom layers, next I will buy ready coloured icing though as it was a nightmare getting white icing black and getting it the right consistency! I was going to make the top layer light blue like some of the examples above, but the butter icing went odd when I added the food colouring for some reason, so out came the ready to roll icing again.

We have a Duplo Lightening McQueen so used this for the top of the cake as it was just the right size, I used two skewers and created paper chequered flags (these were very rushed and last minute so not as neat as I would have liked!) and then wrote 'Ka-chow Alex is 4'. The cake was a big hit with Alex and it actually tasted so much better than it looked! We had this cake on the Wednesday Alex actually turned 4 but still had half the cake left.

The decorations

I got red, white and black balloons, bunched into 3 and dotted around the lounge. 

I also made some chequered flag bunting to hang from the window. I used white card and cut out black squares to stick on, punched holes and threaded on some ribbon-much cheaper than buying some and only took half an hour.

The Party

Pin the tow hook on Mater

I drew out a large mater first in pencil then went over with a sharpie. Cut out some hook shapes and wrote names on them in preparation for the party, along with a dab of blue tack on the back.

Musical bumps, statues, and pass the parcel

For all of these games I had got some music from the cars films to play and also other various Disney films to play throughout the party too. 

Traffic light play dough

For some of the party games I gave out some prizes of some hand made play dough, I coloured it in red, yellow (as I didn't orange) and green, rolled into balls, put on a skewer, placed on black card and put into a clear cellophane bag to present.

Excuse Alex's fingers!

The food

Rocky Road

I took this name quite literally, melt some chocolate and butter, add crushed biscuits, marshmallows and raisins, cover with more melted chocolate. I then added marshmallows which were cut into strips to make road lines, cool and chop up. 

Traffic light cupcakes

Simply bought cupcakes with icing and red, orange and green Smarties on top.

Spare tyres

Chocolate mini doughnuts.

I could've done more themed food but thought it was a little wasted on doing that for 4 year olds, some ideas were fruit cups for Fillimore's organic fuel, oil dipsticks (bread sticks and veggie sticks), Sally's cosy cones (orange coated ice cream cones filled with goodies), there are plenty of other ideas on Pinterest!

Anyway everyone seemed to have a good time, the party picnic went down well and not as messy as I'd expected!

  

Alex turns 4!

This Wednesday Alex turned 4, FOUR!

First off where have those years gone!?

We've seen Alex grow up so much this year, becoming a big brother to Sam and taking on that role brilliantly Sam adores him and it's wonderful to see them interact so well with each other, looking back at photos of this last year, I think he has really changed over the last few months, looking like such a young boy now, far from the pre school image of yesteryear.

This year it was all about Hot Wheels, Disney Cars and LEGO! These have been Alex's main loves, he got his first simple Hot Wheels tracks last year, but this year we got him one with a loop and a noisy part that powers up the cars (think I might regret that!) plus some bits that fire out other cars! The last 6 months he has been really obsessed with Disney Cars, he loves it and would watch them over and over again if I gave him the chance-I think I know Cars 2 to word for word now-so that was a loose theme for his party. LEGO has appeared to become very popular with him since we bought him his first LEGO starter in London this year, and he was very lucky this birthday as ended up with quite a lot of it!!

It was lovely to have Wednesday morning with all of us home for a few hours, present opening on the bed, and a bit of time to play with the new toys before Alex had a few hours at preschool. We had a family party at home with the Grandparents and some of Alex's Uncles.

On Friday we had our NCT friends over that we see regularly. We couldn't afford to have a 'proper' party elsewhere and with friends from preschool as well as our close friends which I felt a little guilty about but at the same time I don't believe you have to spend much on parties and think a lot of them are getting out of hand cost wise these days. Alex didn't seem to mind too much anyway, and enjoyed playing the party games and having an indoor picnic. For what we did for his party please see this post!

For now, Happy 4th Birthday Alex, you are growing up far too fast!

Dream toys 2013-what do you think will make the list? AND a LEGO giveaway!

Birthday and Christmas season is fast approaching in this household, like many people I have been starting my shopping already to help spread the cost. As a result my wardrobe is bursting at the top with boxes of fun filled things! 

So I am delighted to be able to offer my readers this fab competition to win this LEGO© Creator Family House Play set-31012.  perfect for any child who loves LEGO. 

LEGO is always a firm favourite for many families, I have many fond memories of sitting down in front of the instructions eagerly tipping out the LEGO into their piles and getting stuck in, so I am glad that Alex is now starting to really take an interest too. It's a timeless classic and I wouldn't be surprised if one or more of their sets is in the list of Dream Toys 2013 which will be released by Argos in November!

I think this set will be great for young ones starting out on their logo journey to help engage their imaginative play and it's a great chance to grab yourself a brilliant prize to help at this expensive time of year!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Birthday for a bright shining star

A little girl should today be celebrating her 1st Birthday.

Her Mummy and Daddy, brother and sister should be bubbling with excitement for the day ahead, the fun to be had, the memories to be made. 

She should be blowing that first candle out on her very first Birthday cake, and gleaming with pride.

But sadly she isn't here, instead her family are letting her sail off into the night...

To show some support to Jennie and her family on such a hard day some of us bloggers have written special posts for her. 

We used bubbles and stars for a little bit of messy/arty play.

We often make and create cards when it's someone's Birthday, even if it's a simple drawing, so this is for you Matilda (I'm sorry the photos haven't come out so well). 

Today is your Birthday 

So I just wanted to say

I hope you enjoy your special day

It's not how it should be

But still shine with glee

Up high above the sparkling sea

Shine brightly tonight

As today should have been a day of delight

Your Mummy and Daddy will miss you, most of all, tonight.

xxx

Thinking of you Jennie, wishing you all the love, strength and courage to get through today, and every other day xx

Grab the button and link up your post for Matilda Mae

For those of you that don't know there is going to be an auction to raise money for The Lullaby Trust in Matilda's name and memory. More details to follow at Edspire and  Ghostwritermummy. The auction will be running from the 11th-20th May. 

Baby brain, Parties, Birthday's, and lots of cake!

Oops, it seems I forgot about my blog being a year old the other week, I'll blame it on baby brain, but to be honest the fact that it was 4 days before Alex's Birthday probably meant I would have forgotten about it any other year anyway! I had planned on doing some sort of give-away seeing as I haven't done one before and I thought it would be nice...may I can do that sometime in the new year or for a year and 6 months instead!

It was an early start on Sunday, we had a party booked between Alex and his friends (our old NCT antenatal group), so six 3 year olds, 6 sets of parents and 3 under 1's taking over a small soft play area/party room in a local pub/restaurant. It worked out great as they had the soft play to themselves for over an hour, food in the party food, a visit from a Lion (who must have been boiling in his outfit) pass the parcel and we also do a 'secret birthday' present giving so it doesn't get out of hand! The kids had a great time, it was well worth doing rather than hiring a hall like the previous year, it meant no work at all for us parents! One advantage of being a group of 6 families meant we only paid £13 each-bargain!

It has also been my Birthday too! Monday morning was a little naff but I was tired from the day before anyway! Things soon perked up once James came home, I got given my cards and a couple of small gifts James had to apologise as he realised he had bought me two cake serving knives haha how he forgot he'd already got one a few days before I have no idea, but still I love my cake and they are different sizes-they came in good use when he came into the room with a big Chocolate cake and candles just after present opening! We popped out for some lunch, and went shopping at our local Outlet village. There is a recently opened Fossil shop that has some lovely bags amongst other gorgeous things-bit pricey so wouldn't normally give things two looks but great for a treat. But James had promised me some money towards a bag (rather than choosing one himself as he knows I am fussy with things like that) and I also had some money from my parents and grandparents which helped. It took me ages to decide, but I eventually got a bag similar to this but in more of a tan colour...It was a big decision between that and a lovely satchel bag, but I figured this one would be used a bit more! I have never had an expensive 'named' bag before either so it was a really nice treat, it's not like I can buy myself clothes is it...and there is no way I am trying shoes on in public-I look like a hopping elephant!

In the evening we went to my parents, Mum cooked a lovely dinner despite her being at work all day, and baked cupcakes also bless her. I always love the gifts my Mum gets too so enjoyed that-nothing like feeling a big kid again, and she always remembers the little things I say I want/need when just generally chatting away-I forget and then when I open my presents it's a nice surprise again :)

After not getting a photo of me and Alex on his Birthday as James was on camera duty, Alex was tired, and I was extremely busy I made James take a photo of us on my Birthday-I love my cheeky little man :)

I had to get a bump shot too I think the dress/angle makes me look much bigger than I actually am, but it has had a massive spurt recently-I think that it's quite possibly down to the amount of birthday cake/icing I have consumed in the last week and a half!! Ahh well you don't get to use the 'it's OK I'm pregnant, I can eat as much as I want' excuse forever can you ;)

Turning 3

On Tuesday it was Alex's 3rd birthday (where on earth did that time go)! He goes to preschool on Tuesday mornings which was a bit gutting but at the same time quite nice too, they sang to him and another girl at the end with a cake and he came out so happy and excited. We purposely didn't give him his presents before preschool as I don't think we would have got him there otherwise! I had a midwife appointment and blood test in the morning and the weather was pretty awful so we wouldn't have been able to get up to much had he not been at preschool anyway.

This year Alex has really got into Toy Story, probably helped along a bit with our trip to Disney Land earlier in the year-especially coming back with a big Buzz and Woody!

I had asked him quite a few times what he would like for his Birthday cake, but I never really got much of an answer so just sort of went with a Toy Story theme for it. James bought Alex the RC racer car and Rex anyway for birthday presents (obviously the car was for Alex and not him to play with...so he tells me anyway but who played it first ;)!

As always I had a good look on Google and Pinterest for ideas and only pinned a few as most were amazing and well out of my budget/skill level/time & effort needed, but here are a few: cakes and party ideas.

I made two Victoria sponges (each a 3 egg recipe) sandwiched them together with vanilla butter icing and then used the same icing to cover the whole cake but added blue food colouring to it. 

I then spent about an hour trying to make the royal icing the right colours for the top of the cake-especially trying to make the red and blue dark enough!  Eventually I got to a place where I was happy enough to stop/was getting fed up and tired. I copied the style of the Toy Story writing on the front on the DVD case but changed the words to 'Alex is 3', and placed these on top without stressing out/throwing things when it went wrong.* I had borrowed some Toy Story figures that James' Mum has used many times for decorating the boy's cakes and placed them around the edge too. 

Here's the finished result:

Alex was very pleased and excited about the cake which made all the hard work worth it, and I have been told that it was very nice too...I'd have to agree as I have probably eaten the most of it ;)

 I had a really good idea to make all the food themed for his party too, I had even made the signs up like these on the computer:

Unfortunately our printer seems to be playing up with the wireless at the moment and the colour ink seems to have faded even though we have barely used it so didn't end up using them, and to be honest with my low energy levels I thought it was a bit of a wasted task for a family party (perhaps next year)?! I was also going to do a pin the tail on Bullseye or Sheriff badge on Woody but I did just run out of time on that one too!

As it was only family and only 3 youngsters I did sort of use that as an excuse not to have to do those things a bit (oops) but at 8 months pregnant I don't think anyone was going to complain about it!

The ideas I did have for the food (just in case you wanted to do something similar) were:

-Pizza planets (in a pizza box with the pizza planet logos)

- Slinky hot dogs

-Al's Cheesy puffs

-Hamm's bacon crisps or Hamm's rolls (sausage rolls)

-Stuffed potato heads

-Sheriif sandwiches (shaped as stars)

-Lime jelly in clear cups (stick 3 eyes on front and draw mouth with pen to make the aliens)

-Buzz's planets (popcorn and/or rainbow drops)

-Rex's biscuits (the dinosaur chocolate animals)

*I totally got stressy and threw things after 2 hours of cake decorating!

Linking up with the PinAddicts challenge this month too-it's been a while since I have joined in!

Check out all the links over on the blog. 

Not measuring up

I had my 34 week midwife appointment this Tuesday, everything was fine with my blood pressure etc, so she was unsure why I have still been feeling so tired and having the odd dizzy spell, but my next appointment is in 2 weeks time and I have another blood test to test my iron levels again. If my iron levels are OK I can hopefully give birth within the birthing centre rather than on the ward which will be good. When she measured me I could tell something wasn't 'right'  as she did it twice, I knew what she was going to say as it happened with Alex. I am measuring at around 31 weeks rather than at 34, when pregnant with Alex I had an extra scan because of this probably around the same time. As Alex was 7lb 10oz when born (quite a surprise for all as had been told he would be around the 6lb mark) and because it happened last time she decided not to book me in for a scan this time around, but if in two weeks time my bump growth has dropped down again on the chart then she will. So in some ways I want to grow, but in other ways I'd rather not as I already feel very uncomfortable and like my skin has no more stretch, feel fit to burst!

The last few days I have actually felt much better than I have for a long time, and have actually had energy to do some jobs that needed doing. My hospital bag is completely packed up (apart from the last minute things) and baby's bag is pretty much there too, just want to get a going home outfit rather than using some of Alex's hand me downs. My bathroom tiles have been annoying me for ages, the grout looked horrible so I made the most of my nesting feelings and got scrubbing...I love Pinterest I came across a homemade cleaner for tile grout purely baking soda and bleach, mixed to a paste and left on for 5/10 mins and scrubbed off (you can see the pin on my Pinterest page) and for once it actually worked! Don't think my bathroom has looked so gleaming since we moved in, just a shame the bath is still broken and the silicon still looks gross, but we need more time and money before all that can be replaced.

I have been having so many Braxton hicks the last few days which I don't remember getting quite so much when pregnant with Alex, and last night I woke up in pain in my pelvis and back and genuinely thought it could have been the start of labour-it was 3am so my judgement was probably a little clouded! Still I hope this little one makes a slightly early appearance like Alex did, I'd rather them born around the 10th of Dec than the 17th, especially as Alex has a very busy week then with a Christmas party on the 16th, and then one at pre school on the 20th and his first ever nativity play on the 21st (which I really don't want to miss, despite Alex probably getting shy and misbehaving)!

For now I have Alex's birthday to sort out, as it's in less than two weeks time (eek) yet ELC have had me wrapped around their little fingers with another offer, I managed to grab a bargain this week, ordering their wooden car garage for £18!! Alex will be so happy with this as he only has a chunky plastic one for toddlers at the moment. I am planning on a toy story theme for his cake...but going to try an keep it simple! Me and James went through what we have got him for Birthday/Christmas and I am already wondering where it is all going to go!

Hope you've all been having good weeks, we enjoyed a local firework display with some friends on Monday, Alex wasn't so sure on them so maybe next year he won't cry at the noise, although we will have another one that may be doing the crying instead!

Birthday and Christmas presents, how much do you spend on your children?

It's our son's third birthday in November and of course Christmas the following month, I have bought a few things over the year in sales (mainly ELC) but it doesn't really look or cost that much.  I don't want to buy too many little bits and pieces, and would rather buy something that will last and be played with rather than hide in a cupboard and get forgotten about, but he is at the age where they love opening things.

Also I think there is pressure of a sort when people ask what you getting them, after listening to how much they are spending on their children, even at this young age. 

I have been looking on eBay this week at Duplo sets for Alex as he really likes the set he had last year, and I have been wondering whether to try and get some fire station or police station sets on there, but I have my doubts. I feel a bit weird buying second hand things for a present, but don't really know why, as you can get so much more for your money and something like Duplo always looks in good condition. 

So just wondering, how much do you usually spend on your children on their Birthday/Christmas presents? Have you ever saved money by buying things second hand for a present?

I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions. 

Peanut Brittle= a success this time!

Before Christmas I was really annoyed because I had tried and failed at making peanut brittle, it just went too a gooey sticky mixture and didn't set at all! I was even more annoyed because I had followed the recipe correctly and had wanted to make the brittle for gifts, plus I had used up loads of ingredients for it!

I used this Nigella Lawson recipe which is found in her Christmas book (would recommend, especially if you entertain a lot over Christmas)!

After my failed attempt I discovered I wasn't the only one struggling with the recipe and that I should invest in a sugar thermometer...so I did and last night was the first time I'd tried it out.

Ignore the 'let it boil for 5 minutes' on the recipe and follow what the thermometer says, I had to get it up to 154C to get a 'hard crack' mixture and this took much, much longer than 5 minutes no wonder it didn't set last time, why didn't they just write that in the recipe in the first place, I am very impatient with things like this so last time I just timed 5 minutes and thought, that must be fine and plonked it on the baking sheet!

Anyway I would definitely recommend buying a sugar thermometer if you like things like this, jam, and honeycomb recipes (which I will try again soon too-watch out for that one). I got mine from Lakeland and for £7.49 I thought it was quite a bargain!

Here's the final result:

Not the best photo it was 11pm last night!

Here's hoping my Dad will be happy as it's accompanying his birthday present today, and I think he was quite gutted the peanut brittle was missing from the Christmas hamper. I just hope he doesn't break his tooth on it like my partner did last night whilst chipping away at the mixture left on the spoon!!

Son's 2nd Birthday: How to make a digger cake

Am I mad, we have a small house and I had 17 people including ourselves to feed and entertain for our son's second birthday! My little boy is mad about diggers, and I love to make birthday cakes myself rather than buy them from shops. Saves a bit of cash and I think they taste nicer! I had looked at photos of digger cakes for ideas and was shocked to find all these 3D masterpieces so had to find something a lot simpler, because I knew the cake would be on the floor the night before my son's birthday if I even attempted to try and make a 3d cake!

Building site cake
Anyway this is what I came up with, 2 rectangle tins each with a 4 egg sponge mix in, cooked & cooled. Then iced with a melted dark chocolate butter icing between the two layers and all over the outside sponge. I scooped out 1/2 a layer of sponge in the centre of the cake, placed a toy digger next to the hole and placed some of the spare sponge in the bucket of the digger. With a toy dumper truck I ran the wheels over the icing and then mixed the rest of the spare sponge with some butter icing so it looked a bit like mud and placed into the dumper truck.

I then decorated the cake with some chocolate covered honeycomb pieces to look like boulders, and used chocolate fingers to create a wall in one corner of the cake,placing them so they overlapped and using icing to 'cement' them down.

I had some ready roll icing left over from another cake and coloured this yellow, rolled, and cut into a wavy line, wrote with some tube icing and lightly placed onto the cake. In hindsight it would have been easier to write on the icing after it was placed onto the cake though!

The cake was a great success with my son (the diggers didn't stay on the cake for long after blowing out the candles) and we had plenty left over even though some had seconds at the party! I always try and make my cakes slightly larger than I need so I have some leftover ;)

The diggers came in a pack of 4 from a bargain store, didn't use all of them although could have, so my son got an extra present as well as a big cake!