Cupcakes and Cookies

 

A very special moment, forever captured in the blogosphere – Pebble’s first cupcake! It’s not that we haven’t tried to feed her cupcakes before. She’s just never been interested. Her cousin’s first birthday party was the day of days for this very special event. Pebble watched in wonder as other kids mashed vibrant green icing into their faces. I offered her some of her own and she took to it with great enthusiasm. After about five minutes of concentrated and delighted licking the cupcake was abandoned and Pebble spent the rest of the afternoon smudged with green confection, slightly giddy from the sugar-high. Ah, truly a party moment, one of many more to come.

Speaking of which – how great is this activity that my sister lined up for the kids at the party? In case you haven't guessed it by now, the party was  ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’ themed. There was a giant caterpillar cake, caterpillar decorations, a fruit and cheese platter complete with holey fruit, and hungry caterpillar colouring in. I think the favourite activity was the cookie decorating – butterfly and caterpillar shaped cookies were splattered artfully with icing. The mess wasn’t nearly as bad as you would imagine, and definitely worth it.

Have you splattered any bug-shaped baked goods with icing lately? I recommend giving it a go!

The Birthday Party

Yes, yes, it was two weeks ago now, but I got here eventually. Pebble’s birthday party was a lovely afternoon tea with family and friends. I kept the guest list as small as I could, and still it seemed that it was a tight squeeze at times. As planned, I did a duck theme, which as a lot of fun. There was a number 1 shaped cake with blue icing, topped with rubber ducks. I can hear those experience parents groaning from here already – yes kids + brightly coloured icing = MESS. Luckily just mess on their clothes, ha ha, sucks to be you and your laundry!  I also made cupcakes with duckie cup cake toppers, one of which Pebble was offered for the first time ever, but she promptly turned it down. She doesn't know what she’s missing!

I’m so proud of myself for making the cakes from scratch! I am certainly no baker, and no cake decorator either, but it was important to me to make the cake myself. I think they didn’t turn out half bad :)

I dressed Pebble in a cute little rainbow dress that she got for Christmas, and she wore it for about…. 11 minutes. We had the paddling pool set up and she was leaning in, splash, splash, splash, and the next thing I knew she was nudie rudie in the pool. I pretty much didn’t see my own child for half for party, her lovely nanas, grandads, grandmas and aunties all kept watch while I ran around doing party things.

Apart from the birthday cake and (four batches of) cupcakes the only other cooking I did was …… heat up some oven quiches and pastries! I was meant to make fairy bread, but my sister and her friend did a brilliant job of taking on that duty at the last minute. Other than that my family and friends pitched in a brought a plate of their favourite afternoon tea goodies (thank you!!!). We had homemade sausage rolls, brownies, caramel slice, profiteroles, sandwiches, fruit… and lots more. The table was groaning with food but the hungry hoards made quick work of it.

Meanwhile, Paul got the bubble machine cranking, and the kids ran around chasing bubbles, which was very cute. Family and friends were greeted to a sea of blue streamers on the ceiling and yellow balloons dotted around the room. I had made a banner and month by month photo display, with little ducks on each, and the table was adorned with a very classy blue plastic table cloth and rubber duckies scattered on top.

      

The present opening was a chaotic flurry of wrapping paper as Pebble ran around the room with her new favourite thing – a new puzzle. Once she opened that she had eyes for nothing else, so there I sat on the dining room floor, opening presents on my own and holding them up one by one, trying to appeal to the kid. Nope, she was gone. I hope her guests understood that the attention span of a one year old is quite limited – and please know that she has enjoyed each and everyone of her gifts since that day. In fact, it’s like a birthday every day we’ve had so many new toys and books to play with!

The littlies helped themselves to yellow lolly boxes with rubber ducks on the front, filled with a couple of lollies each, individual bubbles and a balloon. I tried not to give out too many lollies, I didn’t want to be responsible for the sugar crashing later that night!

All in all it was a fun afternoon. Pebble enjoyed playing with her family and friends, splashing in the pool, chasing bubbles and basically didn’t want to sleep at all that afternoon. It was a late night for us all that night, but worth it.

Yippee!

I've been too busy to write a proper post, but I will say that I'm excited to welcome a new little niece to the world today AND be putting the finishing touches on the party prep for Pebble's birthday party tomorrow! What an exciting weekend!! What have you got planned?

Let’s Party!

It’s only six sleeps until Pebble’s 1st birthday party!!!! We’ve planned as a little afternoon tea gathering at our place. We’d love to host all our family and friends (all 120ish of them) but instead Pebble will be welcoming her immediate family, grannies, grandads, aunties, uncles and cousins, and a couple of close friends. The menu is simple, just a few nice nibbles, and the family is rallying around to bring along something each, so that’s a big help.

I’ve been busy putting together the banner, the cupcake toppers are already done, and I’m practising my cake making skills today. I’m not known for being the best baker but my mum always made us a birthday cake, one of those Women’s Weekly kids birthday party ones, and I’m determined to embrace that tradition for Pebble. The duck theme is going to be really cute, I think, and not too over the top. I’m going for a simple number 1 cake with some blue icing and ducks swimming across it.

Hopefully the weather stays good, about 30 degrees is the forecast, which means 35 degrees under our veranda. Oh, how I’d love to tear it down and build a nice peaked roof to welcome the breeze, but alas it’s just not an option at the moment. Certainly not by next weekend, at any rate! We have air conditioning though, and plenty of room inside too. The blow up pool will be full and ready for a splash, the bubble machine will be bubbling away (one of Pebble’s Christmas presents), and we’ll all have a merry time celebrating.

All this hooplah is distracting me from the matter at hand…  my baby is turning ONE! It’s gone so fast, but it’s been a long time since I felt that I had a baby. Our toddling Pebble seems to be ready for her second birthday, forget about being one! She’s always been determined to get to the next milestone, especially physically, and she’s quite the tall girl. I don’t really feel very nostalgic about the big ONE at the moment, but maybe it will all hit me on the day.

Fingers crossed that Pebble is awake to enjoy at least a little of the party, and that she has lots of fun with her family and friends. Stay tuned for a full report next week!

Family, friends, markets, oh my!

What a busy and fun weekend we’ve had! I feel absolutely exhausted, but in a good way. On Friday night we celebrated my little sister turning 21 – hip hip hooray!! We went to a pub, some of us ate schnitzels larger than our own heads, and enjoyed a very pretty butterfly covered chocolate mud cake. The baby cousins fell asleep like the little angels that they are, aren’t they sweet?

On Saturday I zipped into the Big W for the one day sale. Bedlam! There were people everywhere, LOTS of mums and dads with their trolley loads of nappies (Huggies had a big special). I got my nappies and got outta there! In the arvo Paul trimmed and re-staked our rose bushes while Pebble and I played, and I got a little bit more party planning done. The poor young rose bushes were so heavy with roses that they were falling over! The growth this year has been fantastic, but the bushes can’t quite cope with it.

Update on the party planning – the first guest list was for 116 people. Um. NO. The second still-large-but-more-conservative list is for 55 people including children and babies. That’s just close family and close friends! I’m still going with the duck theme, more of an indulgence for mummy than for Pebble. I know she won’t remember any of it, but I’ll have fun getting it all ready, and she’ll enjoy it on the day. Pebble loves busy, loud, and lots of people, thankfully, and I think she’ll have a good day.

On Sunday morning, while Paul helped my Dad and step-mum move into their lovely new home, I stopped in at the launch of Lollipop Markets. It was so pretty and organised, and stuffed to the brim with gorgeous, handmade goodies for kids. I bought my step-sister a cute-as-can-be shower gift for a few weeks time, as well as a few (ok, quite a few) little things for Pebble. More about that later …

Sunday afternoon we went to a good friend’s engagement party, where we relaxed on the grass at the local national park and whiled away the hours in their honour. The wedding is in February, how exciting!!! I can’t wait to celebrate with them some more. When all the celebrating for the day was done we went home and tried out Pebble’s new toy – on loan from her cousins while they’re both too big and too little to use it. This walker is just perfect for Pebble at the moment, she’s loving the chance to walk up and down the lounge room. She’s not quite got the turning thing sorted yet, so that’s mum and dad’s (constant) job. Thanks Aunty Skye, big kisses from Pebble xx

Perhaps all that fresh air and walking was just the thing that Pebble needed. Last night was the first. night. ever. that Pebble has slept from 9pm to 7am without waking up. No midnight feed. Only once did I get up to put her dummy back in, at 5am. Wow! I’m not holding my breath for more, I’m not expecting a repeat performance. I’m just enjoying the one night that we had, and I’ll remember it fondly always.

How was your weekend?

Rubber Ducky!

I’m in the process of thinking about Pebble’s first birthday party. We have a BIG family so it’s going to be big no matter how small we try and keep the guest list. I’m think it will either be at our place, or at a local community hall. January is a hot month and our back pergola gets stinking hot if it’s over 27 degrees outside, so outsourcing the venue might be a good idea for everyone’s sake.

Pebble loves her bath time and rubber ducks, they never fail to make her smile. I am thinking about a theme around the idea of rubber ducks, nothing too over the top, just something for me to focus on. I’m now searching the net for ideas and I can’t find any of my old favourite links! There were a few really cool kids party blogs out there but I’m lost in a sea of Google. If anyone knows any great party sites please leave me a comment and let me know :)

So far some ideas I have are:

• a rubber ducky bath time photo of Pebble for the invitations
• blue table clothes topped with clear bubble wrap to make it look all bubbly
• clear and blue balloons for more bubbles
• bubble blowing and yellow ducky play dough making for activities for the older littlies
• novice cake decorator!)
• duck shaped finger food

Whether any of this actually happens is another idea, but it’s nice to have ideas :)

What did you do for your child’s first birthday party?