Dragon's Birthday

Dragon's birthday came fast on the heels of Lion's... Same as it does every year... it's just taken me a while to get to blog it. 

October 30th was Dragon's 4th birthday.  We started the day with presents and kisses!



Big brother kisses are very special... even if he does make it go on forever so that you can't unwrap your gift.

 He's not quite sure why Grandpap and Nano are sending him an eyeball... we had to explain that it was a science kit for him to do some 'sperimentin' with and I promise, his expression changed to a little more excited and a little less confused.

He received a Duplo Caravan Family set from mummy and daddy... this is the one I won waaaaay back on Childhood 101.  He loved it, I had done some careful implanting of ideas in his sweet little head when we were browsing the Lego aisles at the shops but he has enjoyed taking the family camping and combining it with the Duplo Camping Family set that Aunty Chimera got him he has had a blast... Though he did put aside the dad from the camping set... that way between the two sets there was a dad, mum and three boys... sound familiar?

We went small scale on the 'cake' after dinner that night because he was getting a real cake for his party (family get together) the next day.  We had some left over "rocks" from Lion's birthday cake so we piled one each on a plate and melted some candles to the plate and he thought it was the funniest cake but absolutely loved it!  The poor boy had to compete with two brothers and a father all trying to blow out the candles for him... but I think he got them all himself in the end.

The next day we gathered the family to celebrate the two boys birthdays... but we called it "Dragon's party" for the sake of peace.  Dragon had been trying to decide what sort of cake he wanted for days... it was a really big deal for him and none of my suggestions were working.  We were browsing in Target and he came across a silicone cupcake form for a butterfly where you can put all the funny shaped cupcakes together and they make a butterfly.  That was what he wanted, since I had been waiting for something definite to be decided I grabbed the form and we headed off... until two rows later the same sort of thing was hanging up only it was a car shape... well, the butterfly went back and a car was purchased.  They also do a dinosaur one but try as we might we cannot find it anywhere.  This was quite possibly the worst cake I have ever had to do.  I did try to convince him that I could do a better car without the form and we can use his favourite mint pattie biscuits for the wheels... nope, it was this and only this cake.

It didn't matter how close together you put the pieces the icing still ran down between them and left gaps, and they kept moving apart as I tried to ice them... but he thought it was wonderful it was his favourite colour and it was the car he had chosen.  I am so glad that even when he can be so picky about something he is still really easy to please in the end.  Just please, whatever you do, don't judge my cake decorating skills on this cake alone :-)  or my mad photoshop skills... you could never tell that I got rid of his real name and wrote in "Dragon" on the computer... could you?

Now, like all 4 year old boys who get a sword wielding ninja for their birthday... he used the sword to cut the cake.

I hope he never tries that trick with a real ninja sword!  The cake was my usual chocolate cake recipe but using gluten free flour.  So it was egg free, milk free, butter free, gluten free... it was barely a cake at all... but it still tasted really good!

Then to round out the excitement, on Monday he had kindy and wanted a cake to share with his friends like Lion took the cake pops for his friends.  I didn't have it in me to make another batch of cake pops so I just made a regular cake.  That particular day they were going on an excursion to the aquarium so I went a bit wild and made a Blue Linckia cake.  He loved it.

Again with the mad photoshopping skills :-)  And that is the best photo I got of this cake, I'll have to check if Kindy got any of him with it.

I think he quite enjoyed his extended birthday.  It seemed to go on for days and days, just rubbing in the fact that my sweet little Dragon was turning four.  But really, I was ready for three to be over, there has been a few struggles between us for three and four is so much more grown up... at least that's what we're working on.

Happy Birthday to my sweet Dragon boy.  xoxoxo.

Slimey Slimey SLIME!

When you are having a Messy Construction Site Party you need some messy stuff for all the tiny little construction workers to play with. So, Dragon and I had a special little time on his birthday making 20 Litres of slime for the party. I had made this before but I couldn't remember the recipe so I looked it up and then I thought I would record it here for future use and to share with the wider slime loving community.

First you gather all your stuff. Because we were making lots and lots we needed a great big trugtub to hold our slime and the only main ingredient ingredient is... Lux Soap Flakes... shown here by my incredibly handsome model.

Measure out 1 cup of Lux for every 2L of water you want to use.

Start adding warm water. If you don't have a little tiny helper you can start with boiling water to dissolve it faster then add cool water to bring it back to a usable temperature. I just used water from the hot tap for the whole thing because I knew it wouldn't burn my sweet assistant as he stirred it with a whisk for me.

Once you put in the right amount of water just keep stirring. Add any colours you want at this point so you can make sure the colour is what you want. Adding it earlier can mean you add way too much or way too little. So add it now and put in a bit, stir it, a bit more, stir it, until you get the colour you want. The foam on the top doesn't colour much and will trick your sweet little assistant into thinking you don't know what you're on about. Not that you could tell that's what he was thinking from this photo.

Pull back the foam and prove to your chocolate coated assistant that it is a beautiful iridescent snot colour and you actually might know a thing or two about slime making. Only for captain chocky-face to inform you that you haven't got rid of all the soap flakes (they do continue to dissolve as it sits).

Leave it to sit and cool and the slime will thicken and get all slimy and goopy... tease your kids when they are in the bath by pretending to sneeze on them and flicking slime everywhere... Pull it out for your modified pass-the-parcel game for the next days birthday party.

After all your friends have left, put on your daggy clothes, grab any willing children and have a slime fight!

Just in case you missed it in all the fluff the recipe is... 1 cup Lux Soap Flakes, 2 Litres of warm water, stir until soap dissolved, stir in colouring, leave to sit and cool.

Birthday Party #1

It's a BIG BIRTHDAY WEEK here. Lion's birthday today (Monday) and Dragon's birthday on Friday. We had a "small" family party at a park on Sunday afternoon to get things started. Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, great Aunts, Great Grandma, Cousins, Second cousins, I start to get a bit lost here but there were more! Okay, the party was small, the family is NOT. They are having a combined party for a few friends next weekend at our house and I didn't want that one to get too big with family as well so a bit of food at a park and everyone can sit in the shade and get eaten by mosquitoes relax while kids go crazy.

We had presents.

We had fun.

We had cake.

We had a typical McTavish family photo.

See the kids hovering in the background by the water bubbler? Well, we also had 3 random parentless children scabbing our birthday cake.

There will be more birthday posts coming through the week (including that cake recipe) because it's all too much for one post and I have a sweet little Monkey who is refusing to go to sleep tonight. So stay tuned for posts on Lion's birthday, Dragon's birthday, the party and the cake recipe... like I said, it's a BIG BIRTHDAY WEEK.

Sunday Snapshot

One day early. Because we all know it wont happen tomorrow.

Ahhh, gotta start the post of with a bit of sleeping sweetness!

I have managed to track down what is possibly the last box of Zoton in town, we are going out later to get it. I also got a phone call from Dr Jenny that his wee test had white cells so there is some sort of infection so we need to get a formal test done now (she just did the first one in her office) which means another "clean catch" has to be performed. At the moment I just want this all sorted out NOW. Until my sweet husband took over at 6am this morning I was running on 3 hours of broken sleep, by far our worst night yet. It's not missing the sleep that upsets me though, it is seeing my baby in so much pain and discomfort for so long. Hour after hour listening to the sounds of his stomach coming up and down and hearing his hurting little cries. I had to keep him perfectly upright or he would squeal. Eventually when I didn't think I could hold him any longer (and he squirmed too much for the sling) I remembered how my Nigerian friend does her traditional wrap and grabbed a bed sheet and wrapped him to my body. Eventually the pains went away and I was able to lay him down for a short time until his next feed then we started again. My poor baby is sleeping at the moment, not peacefully but he's sleeping. But on to other things...

Do you want to know what sort of things make me feel "home"?

The sun shining on The Pinnacles beside our house...

Um, okay...

The unmistakable outline of Mt Stuart in the other direction...

Um, I guess it's a good thing home is where you're heart is because with this dust storm coating the entire east coast of Australia most of the landmarks are kind of hard to spot at the moment! Before the dust came we were blanketed with smoke from some bush fires so it's been over a week since we've seen the sky.

This sweet little man was 2 yesterday.

The old man next to him was a bit older than that the day before. We ventured out for a Bananas in Pyjamas rager of a combined birthday party last night and we had a blast! Lots of family and a couple of friends (with their 4 day old baby girl) and PLENTY of food. Cousin Wilbie had a great night.

I know Uncle Wilbie would want me to point out what his apron says since he spent the night letting EVERYONE know... "REAL MEN MAKE TWINS!"

That's right Cousin Wilbie is going to be a big brother.... to TWINS. Please pray for these little babies as they grow and get stronger and for their family waiting to meet them. See, Cousin Wilbie has two big sisters in heaven (Yeah, okay Uncle Wilbie, real men make twins TWICE) so there's prayers a plenty and Kate is on rest from 20 weeks (soon). Cousin Wilbie loves to tell people that there's a baby in mummy's tummy, and then let them know that there's TWO!

So how do you know that Cousin Wilbie is related to my boys???

THEY'VE GOT THE SAME CHAINSAW!

What? How do you cut a cake?

Now I have a for real question for all you helpful people... How do you store your craft stuff? Mostly your kids craft stuff. We have bits and pieces everywhere, some in with mine, some in their wardrobe, some in a set of file draw things, its chaotic and we need to do something about it so I'm after ideas. Please help!

The Mummies Must Be Crazy!

I'm not sure what posessed me to agree to even a simple party. Its 10pm and I just put two cakes in the oven that take 40+ minutes to cook. Why two when I have already said Lion is getting the construction site/chocolate crackle cake again??? Well, I have this absolutely rational (I think it's rational anyway) hatred of eating childrens birthday cake, so I make a parents one too.

It's nothing to do with the cake, or all the icing, it's the goobers. And not necessarily the ones from the kids blowing it out. It's the tongues licking the sides of cakes and the unwashed fingers scraping big gobbs of icing off the side that I am really grossed out by. My son is one of the worst offenders in that area. Kids birthday party photos you will often see the picture of the cake with all the kids around and Mummy McTavish holding Lion in what is supposed to look like a loving cuddle but is really restraining him from scraping his little fingers along the side of the cake to get as much icing as he can in one go. He has made one child cry by doing this to the poor kids cake.

So, a monkey cake is baking and I think I can safely say, I wont be icing it tonight. That is a first for me. I always get it done the night before. I feel safer that way, if anything goes wrong I can call on someone else to whip up something "make do" for me. So tomorrow I will be hiding all the junk hanging around the house in our room or the garage, mowing the grass - hopefully Wolf will be really quick when he cleans the BBQ so he can help- slicing onion, buttering bread, icing a monkey... probably something else too. I had better get onto making some chocolate crackles.

PS It's not a Curious George cake it's just a monkey cake (Dragon's our little monkey). I just think George is a kinda cute monkey.

UPDATE: I have 74 chocolate crackles jammed into my fridge setting overnight. I am starting to think though that the whole two cake thing is an even better idea. The bigger of the two cakes stayed in the oven a little whole lot too long and is a bit "dark" around the edges and on the top. I hope I'll just be able to trim those bits off to shape the monkey head. I just got caught up in the excitement that is involved in making 74 chocolate crackles!

She'll be right.

Do I look like I had fun?

Sunday afternoon we all went to a birthday party for one of Lion's friends. It was at a park which is great, it means I am only worried about them breaking themselves and not someone else' stuff. They had an absolute ball, Dragon ate so much he threw up (yes, he really did!!!!!) Lion played soccer, made a gorilla nest and ate HEAPS of lollies, they also played pass the parcel and were very successful in a treasure hunt. Lion's face was pretty grotty at the end (even if the photo is out of focus) but you can see from the other photo that they both had lots of fun, they were still buzzing for hours afterwards.

They had haircuts the afternoon before and then with the temporary crocodile tattoo that Dragon got at the party in his army jammies he looked like he was ready to ship out! he wouldn't hold is arm so you could see his tatt. but he is very proud of it:)