Party time!

This past week Master 2 became Master 3! And all the cliches about “time flying”, “they grow so fast” & other such gems are so true!I am so glad that I jotted down all the milestones/words & anecdotes as they have happened over the past 3 years. Nothing elaborate, just enough to jog my memory from time to time. As much as I would love to scrapbook it all, I am sadly not as disciplined as I would like to be & I know it would fall behind & just end up cluttering my already messy cluttered house. I take my hat off to all those who do manage to stay on top of it all & create beautiful pages.

It’s been a busy week celebrating. No less than THREE cakes & loads of gifts all through the week. Needless to say we had a nap-heavy few days & boy, did we pay for that on Sat morning(his official party day) 5.15am & both boys were well & truly ready for the day!

In hindsight, Sat probably wasn’t the best day for a party, it being Olympic opening ceremony & all, from 8am NZ time! I’m a sucker for such things but as the party was from 11(WHAT was I thinking!?)I was lucky to catch snippets in between getting the food ready!Did I mention that Hubby slept in til 7am(yes, in our house that IS considered a sleep in) before I gleefully sent the kids in to “see Daddy”, at which point he sat down to watch the ceremony!In his defense though, he did keep the kids out from under my feet most of the time. And did a load of washing, so he halfway redeemed himself I guess *wink*

I won’t go into too much detail on most of the food,just the usual sandwiches,sausage rolls, samosas, spring rolls etc Very standard but oh so yummy. I did,however, venture into the unknown & made Date & carrot muffins for the first time. Slightly adapted from Kathy Campbell’s Low Fat Muffins book. Originally Carrot, Date & Mixed Peel Muffins I, of course, didn’t have all the ingredients so i just used what I had & they turned out ok. I did try & fancy them up abit by using cupcake papers but they stuck so completely it was either lose a layer of muffin to remove or eat the paper too!*recipe at the bottom of this post*

Oh, & did I mention I was going for a construction theme? Well, a semi-theme really, a few touches here & there. I saw this on Pinterest & it looked easy enough. Cake pops as construction hats PAH! I decided to use Vegan Fudge(coconut,banana & blueberries.Head over to chocolate covered katie for the recipe) instead, as that’s what I had already made. I’ll let you be the judge as how it turned out…awesome right?!?

Yeah, not so much!I gave it a miss!

Rice Krispie treats, always a winner. And my favourite, Butterscotch Sand(inspired from here) I used butterscotch pudding instead of vanilla & I thought Cool Whip was a step too far(& the fact I couldn’t find any was also a contributing factor!) But it turned out YUMMY! Yogurt pottles made for a perfect serving size & in the middle was a lolly snake..I think I ended up having about 4!

For the cake I wanted to do this. A stretch for me I’ll admit but it just looked sooo awesome! The catch – I would only know if it worked when I cut into it on the day. Bravely I took up the challenge…

I followed the instructions as per her tutorial…

I used 2 cake mix boxes, added yellow food colouring to one & black food colouring gel to the other. Cut out 3 circles from each cake & layered according to her directions.

I ended up with 2 cakes of alternating layers

I iced the bottom one then added the top & iced that too. I added biscuit crumbs as the dirt to finish it off & front loaders of course.

And,finally, for the inside…

hmmm, I’m thinking the cake was too fluffy or something to hold shape. But the idea was there…haha

Slightly better this side if you can get over the lighting!

But Master 3 had a blast & that’s all that matters. In fact, he was so exhausted we got home & 5 min later this was the result..

Carrot, Date & Mixed Peel Muffins

2 eggs

1/3 c brown sugar

2 c non-fat milk

2 c grated carrots

1/3 c mixed peel

1 c chopped dates

3.5 c wholemeal flour

3.5 tsp baking powder

1tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

Preheat oven 200deg C. Beat eggs & sugar together. Add milk, carrot, mixed peel & dates, then fold in dry ingredients. Bake in muffin tin for 20-25 min

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