Christmas Baking.

Well I picked the most stinking hot day to spend baking in the kitchen. Yesterday got up to 30 degrees, with very little breeze. But when you've finally got your baking mojo on, you just gotta roll with it...am I right?!

The Hubsta took the kids out for the afternoon while I got on with the job. I wanted to make little plates of baking to go to my nearest and dearest for Christmas. I also made a Cranberry Cheesecake for Christmas lunch. I sure was stuffed by the end of the day.
Clockwise from the top left.

• I was inspired by Delissimons christmas cookies. She's a real baking whiz. I love the pohutakawa design. It says Merry NZ Christmas. The Cookies are a Spicy butter biscuit.
• Red Velvet chocolate brownies (Recipe here)
• White Tim Tam Truffles inspired by Mrs Cake (Recipe Here)
• I also made a batch of Russian Fudge something I haven't done since 4th form! (recipe here) I love fudge and am very fussy about how it tastes and so I'm pretty darn proud these turned out perfect.

Later on today comes the fun part. Surprise drop offs with the kids.

If I don't see ya (or read ya ;) ) for a while. Have an awesome Christmas and I look forward to reading the blogs of what we've all be up to these holidays.

Littlest Pet Shop party fun!

My little Miss 6 is now a Miss 7. Where has the time gone. She really wanted a Littlest Pet Shop party and like a good mum I obliged. After the mandatory google research, I managed to pull some enthusiasm together and put a party together for her and 6 friends, and tag along brother.
First Dadda practiced his face painting skills on our two. I thought he did a great job for his first time. It really set the scene for when the girls arrived, as they were keen as to pick a littlest pet to be.

Next we had craft time. Each of the girls was going to get a Little pet to adopt in their goodie bag so we decorated little carry bags for them. The stickers (mainly animal ones) were a big hit. Glitter and glue, they bedazzled those boring wedding favour boxes right up.

Other ideas
We had a game of jumping lily pads. Instead of musical chairs, we made green coloured lily pads which remained on the floor. Girls had great fun with this one.
For the decorations we had orange streamers with purple and white balloons with paw prints on them (the littlest pet shop theme colours)
For food we had hot dogs (American and the ones on a stick). Carrot sticks and dip, Sour worms...and that's about where the theme ended...the usual chips and dip, banana splits, fruit kebab etc.

This was the cake I made. Making birthday cakes has only become a recent thing for me (this is my fourth). I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I amalgamated a couple of ideas I had googled and came up with this one.

Great fun! The girls had a great time. Master 4 had his moments and negotiating master 5 months was a bit tricky but all in all it wasn't too stressful, but I'm pooped now!.


Happy Birthday my little girl xx

What a sucky time to have a birthday.

7 years ago today we were waiting. After 9 months the anticipation was killing us. What was our first birth going to be like. Is it a boy or a girl. Who will it look like. Will my waters magically drop in the middle of the supermarket. Wouldn't that be so embarrassing! And we waited. The estimated Due date was 15 December...which had been and gone...could be any minute now we told our selves. Well this baby eventually arrived on the 18th December safely into the world and we experienced the miracle of child birth. The miracle is, the mother makes through to tell the story! Hard work alright!

An almost Christmas baby. What a sucky time to have a birthday! I feel sorry for people who have birthdays really in the thick of it...Christmas day, boxing day and the like. Friends are away having their holidays. No one wants to spend extra on presents.
So anyway I feel I can't quite get in to the swing of Christmas baking until after Saturday. A "littlest pet shop party" is on the agenda. The Christmas tree will disappear for the day and balloons and streamers will appear instead. I'll post some pics after the big day.

O holy night

Wish I could muster up a light show like this!



And I love this song too. Merry Christmas!

Season Greetings!

Merry Christmas from Jacksta's family!