2nd Birthday Ideas

C-bear will be two in May, so I've been coming up with thoughts on what to get him. I was particularly pleased when I first started thinking about things a couple of weeks ago Mum Down South had already written a post almost identical to the one in my head!

We want to get him some sort of ride-on to take to the park and I was thinking about a Scuttle Bug or a Sramble Bug which are advertised for one - three year olds, but then I read the reviews and loads of parents were saying that although they're great for a one year old, they're just too small for two plus. I then saw one in John Lewis and had to agree, they're very cute but too little for my growing boy.

Mookie Scuttle Bug

Mookie Scramble Bug

So then, using the power of Amazon's customers who bought this also bought... I discovered the Balance Bike! I'd never heard of them before but they sound great. Basically it's a little wooden bike with no pedals and no brakes! The idea is that your toddler scoots along using their feet and learning how to balance as if it was a proper bike. There's two on Amazon which I really like:

 Now that I've found out about them, I see them everywhere! They look so fun, my little man is going to love taking his to the park this summer.

A trip to London Zoo

For Daddy's birthday the three of us went on a little adventure to London Zoo. T had to run an errand first so C-bear and I met him at London Bridge station. Our adventure started waiting for the train to take us there. Mr C loved loved loved watching all the other trains go past and kept saying 'hello train' 'bye bye train' as they did.

We then took C-bear on the tube for the first time, this was the part of the trip I was most stressed about, but it all went really well. We were travelling around 10.30am, so it wasn't particularly busy, there were lifts at London Bridge and when we got to Baker St, it was easy enough to take the buggy on the escalator.

At Baker St we took the bus to London Zoo. We're really lucky that C loves any type of vehicle, so he was kept occupied with the excitement of having been on a train, then a tube then a bus. He was a happy happy boy!

At the zoo we went to the Gorilla's first and they were by far C's favourite animal to watch. He absolutely adored them, kept saying 'hello grilla' and 'bye bye grilla'. The monkey's were next door which C also loved. Other highlights included:

- Seeing the penguins and saying 'waddle, waddle, waddle'
- Daddy paying for C to go in a toy bus, which C jumped out of as soon as it started moving and refused to go back in
- Seeing the sleeping tiger, we got so close!
- Fish, chips and pasta for lunch. Mummy had pasta and peas, C-bear refused it, Daddy had fish and chips, C-bear refused the fish and filled up on chips and ketchup
- Seeing the Komodo dragons and calling them 'dragon dragon'
- We bought a monkey mask for C and a tiger mask for cousin M, they were great value at only 75p each in the gift shop!
- Usually C would have loved the meerkats and otters but by the end of the day was a little grumpy and fell fast asleep whilst we were looking at them.

A Walk in London

Another book review, this time for a beautiful new picture book. I got it to show C-bear all the sites we're so close to and will some day take him to see properly! But the boy is A.D.D.I.C.T.E.D. to statues and this book also helps to quench his fetish! His favourite page is the one about Trafalgar Square, there's Nelson's Column, 4 Lions plus a random Man on Horse statue that he can't tear himself away from. The book has become 'Statue book' and although we only got it a few days ago, it has been looked at a lot!

I love the illustrations, my favourite page is the one for St James' park and also Monument (because it features Daddy Bear's office) but 95% of the story reading is looking at Trafalgar Square. When we finally take him there it's going to blow his mind!

How to make a wedding cake - Part two

So here's the finished cake! Here's how we did it:

- Wellington Barn stacked them for us on the wedding day morning and then my lovely florist (a family friend) decorated with flowers. She made a mini bouquet for the top and ivory roses on the other tiers. The flowers matched those in my bouquet and on the table decorations, button holes etc.

- You could tell the cake was home-made, it was a little wonky in parts, the icing didn't have a completely perfect finish and pillars weren't exactly straight, but I loved it and was really proud of what Mum and I (well mostly Mum) had achieved.

- The biggest problem with the cake was it's size, the weight and the too short dowels meant that it did begin to collapse! We'd planned to cut it at 7pm, just before the first dance, but instead we were advised to cut it at 3pm, just in case it didn't last. Once we'd cut it, the cake was actually left out standing tall until 7pm anyway, but it did have small cracks in the icing in the middle tier.

- C-bear loved the cake cutting, he is addicted to cake, you just have to say the C-word and he'll repeat it constantly (cake, cake, cake - vision the seagulls in Nemo saying "cake" instead of "mine"), the photo of him is so cute, he was so intent on getting a piece!

- We served the cake with the evening buffet at 8pm and it was well received. However the next day when we collected our things from the barn, even though the two massive platters of cut cake had gone, we brought back about 3/4s of the cake, honestly I think the cake would have served 250 rather then just 80.

- I left a load with my Mum, gave some to my brother and still brought a ton back to London with me. I brought half of it into work and it fed the rest of the Marketing Team for a couple of days!

- I still have some of the fruit cake left.

How to make a wedding cake - Part one

After a quick look at the cost of buying a wedding cake, Mum and I decided that we'd make mine. Here's how we did it, including hints and tips on what I'd do differently if I made it again and how it almost collapsed on the day!!!

PART 1 - MAKING THE CAKE

- We decided to make 3 different types of cake, Mum made the bottom 18in one, a fruit cake recipe she used for her own wedding cake, and the top 14in cake, a rich dark chocolate cake I found the recipe for on the BBC Good Food site.

- I made the middle tier, 16in and madagascan vanilla flavour, I found this recipe on the BBC Good Food site as well. What made it extra special was that the vanilla pods I used were actually brought back from Madagascar by my Aunt!

- The vanilla recipe is brilliant, I'd made a couple of practise runs of it over the last few months and had got it just how I wanted it. The secret ingredient is Greek yoghurt, it makes the cake really moist, there's also a vanilla syrup you pour over the sponge once it's baked.

- Making the sponge was the easy part, I'd never actually practised cutting it into three layers - very carefully to keep them as straight as possible, and then filling them with butter icing. Because Mum had made her tiers taller then mine, we then added extra butter icing and thicker marzipan to make all three tiers a similar height.

- We'd never used confectioners icing before, but it was really easy to roll out and we stuck it to the marzipanned cakes with apricot jam.

- We smoothed the icing down, very gently and here I wish we'd had more time to really smooth it as the more you polish it the glossier it becomes, but by then it was late Thursday afternoon and we had to deliver the cakes on Friday morning.

- A quick mention about cake size. I literary bought the 3 biggest tins in Lakeland, assuming that the bigger the cake the better. However this, and also Mum making her cakes v. high, meant that the cake was MASSIVE, really huge and really heavy.

- We put each cake on a silver board and left the icing to set for a couple of hours. We also added a white satin ribbon to the bottom of each. By now it was Thursday night and we were running out of time!

- I bought the pillars from M&S, they were plaster and really pretty. I also saw plastic ones but thought they weren't as nice. A slight annoyance with these is that the M&S shops had stopped selling the pillars so I had to order them online, but you could only order online for them to be delivered to a store, so it took about 5 days for me to get them!

- Nothing on the pillar and dowel set said anything about cake heights, and when we got the dowels out, they were too short for our mega-high cake! Basically the way it works is that you have a plastic dowel rod that goes all the way through the cake to the cake board at the bottom, the other end sticks up out of the cake and you put the hollow pillar over it, and there should be a little nub of dowel sticking out the top of the pillar.

- Unfortunately our cakes were so tall that the dowels were about half an inch too short. We had no time to buy longer dowels, so we devised a cunning plan. Rather then have 4 pillars on each level, we had 4 on the bottom and 3 on the middle, that way we had a spare pillar and dowel to use. I then cut the dowel into 7 equal pieces (using a serrated kitchen knife) and we poked these pieces down to the bottom of the holes for the dowels, we then put the regular dowel on top of this, and placed the pillars on top of each cake.

- Measuring the angles for the bottom layer was easy as there were 4 each at right angles to each other. The middle tier now had 3 layers and we couldn't find a protractor to measure the angle. Mum came up with a great solution, she took a 6 pointed star from C-bear's shape sorted and placed it in the middle of the cake. We then put the 3 pillars in straight lines from 3 of the points!

- We were still worried about the weight of the cake, particularly as we no longer had strength in the dowels, but went to bed happy that we'd got it finished in time.

- On the Friday morning T, C-bear and I took the cake along with all the other wedding bits and pieces (confetti, guest book, table numbers etc) to Wellington Barn. The two heaviest tiers each went in a box, packed in so they didn't move around. The top tier was on a tray on my lap.

- The lovely people at the Barn agreed to stack the cake for us on Saturday morning, rather then me stacking it a full 24 hours before it was needed and risk it collapsing over night.

To be cont.

Apple, Blackberry and Raspberry Crumble

I'm trying to cook more homemade meals for C-bear, for pudding we usually have yoghurt or fruit or (if he's lucky) cake. So today I made the crumble recipe from my toddler meal bible Annabel Karmel's New Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner. I've been using the recipes from this book since we started weaning and there's a few that have become staples - fish pie, Thai noodles, Bang Bang chicken - but I've not made that many desserts. So here's what we did.

1 - Got all the ingredients together, I added raspberries to the recipe as blackberries and raspberries were on offer together at the supermarket.
2 - Peeling the apples - most boring job of the whole recipe, it's that simple!
3 - Cooking the apples with butter and sugar, then adding:
4 - blackberries
5 - raspberries
6 - Cooking it down till it's nice and soft
7 - mixing the crumble topping together
8 - Putting the fruit on top of a layer of ground almonds (to mop up the juice)
10 - Adding the crumble topping
11 - Serving...
12 - in a little red bowl and...
13 - giving to C-bear, who...
9 - tried it and decided even with ice-cream he didn't want it - fussy boy :(

Mama Bride

We've not got the official photos yet, but lots of my friends and family got some great shots which they've sent to us. I love digital cameras, we had over 800 photos on our laptop the morning after the wedding! Anyway, to be a bit of a bridezilla, these are my favourite shots of me!

1 - Cutting the cake - we had to do this early because the cake was so heavy we were scared it would begin to collapse if we left it too late!
2 - Confetti - I bought 10 litres of dried flower petals, it was quite expensive (plus this was on special offer as it was seconds) but so worth it. We got absolutely covered in confetti, my brother got a well aimed throw down my neckline and I was still finding confetti that night! The kids loved it, they loved throwing it and stamping on it afterwards.
3 - Posing for photos - I love the hills behind us
4 - My colleague Ant got this shot of me, I love it. I remember I was moving quite quickly and he snapped and got a perfect shot! I also love the yellowy natural light as he didn't use the flash.
5 - Signing the register - we've got loads of photos of us doing this as the registrar invited guests to take photos and we were posing for at least 10 minutes (it's not the actual signing as it's illegal to take photos of this, so it's a posed shot and I remember worrying that I'd touch the pen to the paper and make a mark on the next couple's register entry!)
6 - Another shot from Ant, I saw him lining up the photo so gave him the thumbs up. Another colleague who's now left had a Thai girlfriend, she thought the phrase was 'thumb up' because you only ever show one thumb, it makes complete sense, and this photo makes me think 'thumb up'
7 - Having a drink - the wine was really really lovely, I kept putting my glass down and losing it and actually didn't drink that much, but I love this pic of me, beginning to relax in the early evening.

Book Review - What the Ladybird Heard

I can't believe I didn't know about this book until now! Written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Lydia Monks C-bear and I love it. The story, as with all Donaldson picture books, is written in rhyme, and wonderful to read out loud, plus the illustrations are brilliant. So detailed, C-bear loves pointing out all the animals and finding the glittery ladybird on every page. He's also intrigued with the rosette on the prize cow (weirdo) and points it out straight away on every page! A must read for any toddler.

Wedding - the small details

It's the little details that seemed to take the longest when planning the wedding, but it was well worth it, I love the photos that my family and friends took of some of the smaller details.

1 - Drinks reception, everyone outside enjoying the Feb sunshine
2 - Table 7, all the tables had author names (I'm a serious bookaholic) and a quote about love or marriage
3 - Top table flowers and little wooden 'love' sign, I bought the sign back in August when we first booked the barn, it usually sits next to a photo of C-bear, but looked perfect on our top table
4 - Cherhill Monument - one of the beautiful views from the barn
5 - Inside looking out at the view
6 - Lights in the hall during the disco
7 - Wool caught on a fence
8 - C-bear and his great uncle M take a walk in the field
9 - The lights in the old barn
10 - Outside the barn
11 - My bridal bouquet
12 - Table 5 - Tolstoy quote
13 - A hot air balloon flew past
14 - Wooden T&M letters at the top table
15 - Moon and stars

Paper Mama - Favorite Photo From February

Linking up with The Paper Mama's Feb photo challenge. I obviously have loads of photos that I LOVE from the 25th, but this is my favourite one of C-bear at our wedding.

Taken at the disco at the end of the wedding, all the kids were loving the lights, C-bear had been outside, on coming in he refused to take off his coat and this was taken at that moment of aprehension before he threw himself into the dancing.

Charlie at the wedding

I was worried the wedding would overwhelm C-bear. A whole day where I couldn't pay him 100% attention, where he was in a crowd of noisy strangers, where his routine was turned upside down, but I shouldn't have worried, he LOVED the day, had a blast, here's Charlie's highlights.

- Little guy held the hand of bridesmaid V and walked behind me down the aisle
- He gave his Daddy a big hug in front of all the guests whilst I was outside doing my pre-ceremony legal parts with the registrar
- He was a little noisy near the start of the ceremony, but sat with his Aunty N and snuggled up for a mini-doze whilst we were pronounced husband and wife
- Nana gave him a red robot, he loved it and didn't let it go for the whole ceremony, he still calls all robots 'Momo' after the robot doll from Show Me, Show me
- Great Uncle M took him for a long walk across the fields near the barn, cue lots of cute photos
- There were 8 under 3s, plus a 5 year old and a 9 year old, C-bear had lots of fun running around with them all
- Aunty N was his designated babysitter, but there were so many family and friends that he could pretty much run around and always have someone looking out for him
- He was good throughout the wedding breakfast, particularly enjoying the ice-cream and wafers. We bought him a wooden jigsaw to play with and it kept him busy for ages!
- All tables with kids on had pots of bubbles, so C loved watching them as they blew across the room
- The favours for the kids were mini-books, the two we gave C occupied him for about 2 mins
- When we cut the cake, he ran up to the table saying "caaaaakkke"
- All the babies loved the disco lights and had a blast running around in the hall before the first dance
- During the speeches Aunty N took him outside and put on his smart black coat, back in the warm he refused to take it off, and looked like a mini Mafioso
- During the first dance he ran up to T and I and joined us for a family hug. Everyone went 'ahhhhh' thinking it was v. cute, when T and I knew it was actually a jealousy thing, C-bear hates to see us hugging without him
- We took his pjs, dressing gown, slippers and toothbrush with us, Mum was able to get him ready for bed and everyone cooed over the cuteness of the outfit
- Mum drove him home at about 8pm, he fell fast asleep in the car and she was able to carry him to his cot without waking him. K, a family friend then watched him so Mum could return to the party