Birthday season!

I love birthdays.  Especially my kids birthdays.  Its the one day a year that you can really celebrate who they are as people.  So often as a mum I am focusing on how I can help my child grow and improve upon the things that they may not be doing well (listening, sharing, etc).  Birthdays are the one time I put aside all of that stuff and just celebrate them for who they are and who they are becoming.  They are a wonderful reminder and to be honest I should be doing it all of the time.  It is so easy to criticize your own kids when you see things that you don't like in them and not just let them figure it out on their own sometimes.  I so often have to stop and remind myself to just "be" and just enjoy watching them and enjoy them.   I also think that sometimes I am so worried about sounding like I am boasting about my child that I forget to lift them up and talk about what they do so well at.

My daughter turned four this week and I will stop and tell you what I love most about her.  Maybe as a reminder for myself and also for her to know as well. She is my bright spark, incredibly enthusiastic and encouraging with an incredibly thankful spirit.  Just on her birthday morning she looked at me and said "thank you for my birthday mum".  It melted my heart.  She is one of the boys most of the time, loving to run around and get dirty and willing to give most things a go.  She is a little artist and loves building with blocks, especially LEGO.  I love watching her concentration when she undertakes what she loves to do. She shares so well because she just wants people to be with her and have fun with her.  My dear girl is an incredible older sister.  She adores her younger brother and they are the best of mates.  She loves to teach and to help other kids.  She fills my heart with so much joy just being with her.  Happy Birthday to my little buddy!  Mummy loves you dearly. xx  

What do you love most about your kids??  Stop for a minute and think about it and maybe write it down.  They love to hear it and will love to read it one day. 

Here are some photos of the birthday party (a joint one for her brother and her) as well as the cake made for kindy!  Enjoy. :)

Homesick blues

Homesickness has a way of sneaking up on you out of no where.  For me it always happens in a public place which makes it somewhat worse.  Years ago it was the supermarket.  All I wanted was a specific ingredient to make a special recipe my mum always makes for Christmas and when I found New Zealand didn't carry it I was a mess.  A couple years later it was the post office when I was told I couldn't mail peanut slabs to my mum for her birthday.  Yesterday, it happened to be the post office again.  I wonder if the post office has many cases of the homesick blues but somehow I think I'm probably the only one that's broken down over not being able to send cookies.  I am pretty sure the lady thought I was crazy.  I mean cookies?  But these were very special cookies.  Time and love went into these cookies and I was SURE I was able to send them.  I had done my research and was sure it was OK    A lesson very much learnt as next time I will phone before I get so excited.  What I have figured out is that its OK to bring baked goods into the country but not to send them.  Next time I will have to hop on a plane to personally deliver them.

After my breakdown I decided I had to give these cookies away.  They were making me too sad.  I was almost very tempted to give them to the ladies in the post office to show them the love that went into them, BUT they delivered me my very bad news so decided it wasn't in me to make their day.  In the end I decided to deliver them to one of my aunties (the next best thing, or third best thing after Grandma).  This particular auntie had had a birthday in the weekend and was burgled twice in the last two weeks so thought she could use some extra love in her day.   It made me feel much better visiting her and I am now only tearing up mildly as I write this (I might have been a blubbering mess).

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mum.  I was sending you these cookies but some mean people at the post office said I couldn't.  Something else is on its way but no where near as exciting. Love you heaps!

Parties with Mrs Woolleys Cakes!

My daughter enjoyed cupcake decorating so much with the kids in the street that I had another group of people over to decorate.  What fun we had!  I love sharing tips of cake decorating because I find it so much fun myself and a cupcake class is where it all started for me.  Even more so, I am passionate about sharing my skills with the younger generation.  When you find something that you know you want to do for the rest of your life you want to be able to share that "aha" moment with everyone.  Part of me would have loved to have learned this skill at a young age.  I might have gone to pastry school and have taken art classes.

In light of all of this, Mrs Woolley has decided to start doing cupcake decorating birthday parties! One day I will have a studio for this, but for now, I will come to your house, bring all of the supplies and take the mess with me!  The kids will spend anywhere from 45 mins to an hour and a half depending on their age decorating cupcakes to fit in with the theme of the party.  They get an incredible amount of pride decorating their own cake and whats even better is they make their own birthday cake which saves you a job!

Parties are for kids ages 6-14 (I am happy to do younger but if younger, children will each need a helper to decorate).  I charge $60 for up to 6 kids for a 45 minute session.  For every additional child the price is $10.  For older children, you may wish to increase the time of decorating to an hour and a half as they may not wish to stop after 45 minutes.  The price for this is $85.  If you are interested in more information regarding these parties you can contact me on 0211613072 or email me at mrswoolleyscakes@gmail.com.

Here is a sample of the cake decorating done in the weekend and what the kids may come away with.

Baby Sativa

Today thousands of people around the world paid tribute by letting off balloons to precious little Sativa who lost her 20 month battle to Leukemia this week.  Sativa won the hearts of nearly 6000 people around the world on facebook with her gorgeous smile and heartbreaking story.
http://www.facebook.com/HelpSativa

Diagnosed with cancer at just four months old she was in the hospital much of her small life.  Her story is a reminder to us of how fragile life can be and to make the most of every moment, especially with our dear children.  Today when you are with your children, cuddle them as much as you can, laugh with them, spend time with them.  All over the world there are mums like Sheree who are longing to do just that and cannot.  Don't worry about the mess or their cheeky behavior.  Just stop what you are doing and LOVE your babies and remember Sativa.

These cake pops were made for the family for the funeral to celebrate the life of Sativa.

Cupcake decorating with kids

Today was one of those fabulously memorable days.  A day I will look back on with fond memories.  Six of the neighborhood kids came over and we decorated cupcakes.

It all started a few weeks ago when I suggested to my seven year old neighbor girl that we should have a cupcake decorating afternoon during the school holidays.  She promptly sat down with my 3 year old and they constructed invitations and brought them to all of the kids in the street.  My daughter was incredibly excited and has talked about this coming event ever since.

Last night I was still slightly unclear about what to have the kids make as I had a range of ages from 3 to 11 and half boys and girls.  In the end I decided on monsters(cute ones of course) and butterflies.

The afternoon went far better than I imagined! When the kids arrived I had the older ones decorate their cupcakes first so that they could help the younger ones.  The girls got right into it, surprising me by coming up with their own monster designs.  They then went on to create their own cupcakes without my supervision. I loved to see this creativity flourish!  How I wish I had this as a kid.  All of the kids stayed well until the afternoon, a few of them I had to kick out when it was dinner time (nicely of course).  The sound of the kids playing in my yard and in my house brought fond memories as a kid playing late in the street with all of the kids, in and out of each others houses.  A few of them sat and chatted to me for awhile.  My house was always an open house to kids growing up and I loved that and want the same for my kids.

Have a look at the kids creations and see what you think!

Time for a catch up

Its been awhile since I have posted anything.  Things have been a little bit crazy as of late.  Between having a ton of family visiting, sick kiddies, a broken dishwasher(I have been doing alot of dishes!) and starting part time work for the first time in nearly four years, cakes have been put on the back burner.

I have loved the new challenge of work and will guiltily admit that the 12 hours away from my children a week is somewhat bliss.  It could have something to do with the fact that I have the sexiest boss ever or the 12 hours of order I feel when most of the time I am terribly disordered. Sometimes I don't think that its the kids I need a break from, but me to get my head into gear a bit better.

Last week I did get to make some cake pops for a friend which I loved making and to top it off the party was in the country with lots of animals! My kids loved it.  My daughter said it was the best party ever.

I will admit that I have tried a few other hobbies to fulfill my need to be creative while cakes have been missing.  My husband thinks that I am turning into a little old lady and laughs at me while I am sitting on the couch crocheting little booties.  Personally I think I am just practicing to be a nana so that by the time I am one I will be the BEST nana ever. Sadly my own Grandma jokingly asked me to teach her to crochet.  I really do enjoy it though and was pretty happy with my first attempts.

Nothing quite beats cakes though.  I was feeling particularly out of sorts this week and sat down last night to work on a cupcake project for my daughters kindy.  While I worked, everything just fell off my shoulders and I felt refreshed again.  Sometimes a girl just needs to get her cake on.  For my daughters kindy I helped 24 2-4 year olds decorate these cupcakes.  They are learning about flowers at the moment so it was perfect!   They did such a great job!  Happy spring!

60th birthday cake

This cake was a special cake for a a friends father of mine.  There are specific elements in this cake that represent him. I was very pleased with how it all came together.