Monster Cakes

I have managed to get myself all inspired by my friend over at Running Away? I'll Help You Pack.
She is always so good at decorating cakes for a theme. Usually just a made up idea that looks so simple and easy to complete.
Ben's class have just been studying animatronics (robots and how they are made).
At the end of the study block they decided to have a shared lunch in the class. All the kids were to bring something that was monster themed to complete their study block on this subject.
Ben wanted cakes....!

The teacher sent home a flier with details and on there was a picture of some of the monsters from Monsters Inc (the movie)
This got us thinking....so we ended up with Wazowski Cakes, after Mike Wazowski from the movie Monsters Inc

Now I have not be a big user of food colouring for quite a while, so this was quite an experience for me to use it again. In fact I was amazed at exactly how much I needed to use to achieve the desired effect.
Right from the beginning let me tell you that I cheated....yep I am a busy mum and I was happy to help my son out but there was not going to be any heroic moments of me staying up till midnight to make his class 20 cupcakes all decorated as Wazowski!
So I used a boxed cake mix to make the cakes! There I said it, I didn't make the cakes from scratch. And to push it even further I used the frosting that came in the box to decorate the cakes as well. I know I can hear the cooking gods turning as we speak.

Yes that is blue cake mixture. I decided that if it was monster cakes we were making then they had to be weird as well. So they had blue cake and green icing. It actually turned out ok.
I then turned the frosting green and decorated the cakes with white choc buttons and used icing pens to achieve the fine detail.

Ben loved them and at the end of the day that was all that really mattered.
They didn't last long in the class lunch either, so kids were obviously not put off by green frosting.

Birthday

We have had a very busy day today for Alex's 3rd Birthday.

He started the day with an enormous pile of presents which would have happily kept him entertained for the whole day!

He decided that he had to have a Thomas cake today, Thomas the Tank Engine that is....my cake making skills are not that flash!

So in between swimming lessons, that went really well and everyone did so well, we tried to find things to make a Thomas cake. We found some suitable items.

We didn't have a party this year, he is only 3 after all, doubt he will remember this day that well! But we did have some friends round for dinner. So we decorated enough for him to feel like it was a special meal.

The cake turned out better than expected and he had lots of fun getting into the spirit of his birthday and he was all for blowing the candles out. Good old Betty Crocker and Vanilla Frosting!

Alex gained a crane and a construction set for his birthday, which he happily combined to see if he could rebuild the crane!

He also got 2 books for his birthday, my boys are always getting books and they love them, so we had 2 lovely new books to read at the end of the day, although when it was sleep time this little bundle came down the stairs wanting mummy. I gave him a big bear hug and he promptly fell a sleep in my arms.

Just the way I like to end the day, my gorgeous baby a sleep in my arms.

Birthday Party

So we invited a few little friends over and had a little party to celebrate Ben's 4th Birthday.
We did nothing too special, just as it happens to turn out, the same as last year, a little trip on a model train.
Everyone really enjoyed it, weather turned out great and then it was back home for a little party tea and cake.

The kids all got on so well and were racing all around the house.
They all particularly enjoyed playing hide n seek. So it was really cute to capture Ben and Alex both taking a turn at seeking.
They both took it so seriously and stood with their hands over their faces whilst counting to 10.