4th birthday celebrations

On Thursday it was Charlie's 4th birthday. He's such a big boy now and it's lovely to see him interacting with his friends.

He's very shy in large groups (as we've found out at all the birthday parties we've attended recently) so we did lots of nice little things to keep him from getting overwhelmed. On Wednesday night we had tea and birthday cake with Nana and Grandad. C had helped Nana make the chocolate cake earlier in the day as he spends Wednesdays with them.

On Thursday we opened presents in the morning before nursery and then took in cakes for all his friends. We bought an M&S chocolate caterpillar and a vanilla dolly mixture cake and C got to eat the caterpillar's face as he was the birthday boy.

On Saturday we met up with Granny and Grandad, Uncle S, Aunty N and cousin I on the Watercress line steam railway and had a lovely day going up and down the railway and looking in at the engines being fixed in the engine shed. C even got to go into the signal box and pull down the levers to change the points. I made a steam train themed birthday cake which we had at the end of the day with a cup of tea whilst C opened his presents.

Today we had a bowling alley birthday party with 5 friends, 4 from nursery and cousin M who's just turned 3.

Charlie's 3rd Birthday - A Day Out With Thomas

Last week the boy turned 3 and for his birthday we decided to let him do the one thing he's been asking about for ages, a steam train ride. This boy is so into trains, he lives, breathes and dreams about them and Thomas the Tank Engine is absolutely number one for him at the moment.

The Spa Valley Railway was holding a Day Out With Thomas, so 11 of us went to help Charlie celebrate, including his little cousin M who loved the trains too.

It was really well set up, designed to be so exciting for little boys (and girls) with a Thomas addiction like our son. When we received the tickets in the post there was a message from Thomas to Charlie, we've read it many times. On the day, all the staff were really friendly and the Fat Controller was wandering around meeting everyone, he stopped and talked to Charlie and me for a long time and even though the boy was a little scared, he liked talking about having met the Fat Controller afterwards. Other staff members gave out Thomas books, we now have two new stories to read, and there was a balloon man on the train who made balloons for all the kids. Charlie got a white dog, little cousin M got a yellow parrot and Aunty N got a cool flower hat.

The train ride was fun though quite short, we were on the ride for 45 mins, but that included 15/20 mins at a station down the line waiting for the train to turn round. We rode inside Daisy who was being pulled by Spartan. Thomas was there but he doesn't do rides so that everyone can see him. As we were leaving the station the Thomas train went past our carriage pushing oil drums.

So a great day out and a good price, £9 for children and £11 for adults, which included the free books, balloons, ride on the train, talking to the Fat Controller and time to play at the 'imagination station' which had brio tracks and other games plus a Punch and Judy.

We'd packed a picnic to have at the station, but realised there was no space at Tunbridge Wells West, so on the way back to Nana and Grandad's house we all stopped at Hall Place in Kent for our picnic. It started great, but the grey clouds soon came in and we had to make a dash to the car . Nevertheless Charlie had a great day and hasn't stopped talking about it since.

Charlie's 3rd Birthday - Cakes

Making birthday cakes for my son is something I take really seriously. My Mum used to make epic cakes for me, I had treasure chests, fairy toadstool houses and even a roller boot, and I want Charlie to have similar great birthday memories. Plus he won't be able to remember the early birthdays but we'll always have photos of him and his cake, so his memories of the first three birthdays will be solely created by the photos we've taken.

For his first birthday I made this hedgehog cake:

When he was two, I took the day off work to make him this Gruffalo cake:

He loves the Gruffalo, plus years before he was born I worked at Macmillan Children's Books, so the Gruffalo is a particularly special book for me. I wrote this 2nd birthday post last year.

So I needed to find something special for his third birthday. After doing some research on Pinterest (check out my Birthday Cake Ideas board) and flicking through some cookery books, I decided on a Dinosaur Chocolate Volcano Cake. I got the recipe from The Birthday Cake Book by Fiona Cairns (she made William and Kate's wedding cake!). The instructions looked complicated and the cake needed chilling time before sculpting it in the volcano shape, so this year I took two days off work.

The instructions were easy to follow, there were just loads of them. I made the grass with granulated sugar and green food colouring and the volcanic lava rocks with homemade cinder toffee (sticky but a brilliant home science lesson with syrup, sugar, white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda). The dinosaurs were supplied by Charlie (he picked his two favourites to sit next to the cake). The part that made it so spectacular was the indoor firework fountain in the centre. When we lit it Charlie's eyes went wide, he loved the erupting volcano. We had to wait for the sparkler to stop and then he could blow out the candles (his favourite part).

To add to the cake making this year I made a mini train cake for his actual birthday day. I hadn't planned to but on Sunday he turned to me and with real excitement said "and Mummy on my birthday on Wednesday I'll blow out three candles on my cake". Luckily Granny had given C some train shaped muffin moulds as an early birthday present, so I practised making the chocolate marble cake recipe and we had a mini train cake on the actual day. I had some gold cake glitter spray which worked really well on the galaxy minstrel wheels and the cake to make it look metallic.

 

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