Let's eat cake!

Mr Smiley's impending birthday on Sunday means that we have spent a lot of time in the kitchen preparing all manner of treats.

It is great to get the children involved although I do find that part difficult as I know there will be mess involved, and yes I may have to pick egg shells out of cake mix, and it will slow me down but sometimes with such a hefty workload it is best to start a little earlier and let the boys join in (and this usually helps in keeping the rest of the house tidy as they are not roaming causing havoc).

So yesterday I set Mr Cheeky to work on making muffins, I weigh he mixes and puts the mix in the tins. He did a great job at trying to get each muffin to the same height. Mr Social was given a lesson in pastry as he made some short crust pastry for quiches and then helped beat the choux pastry (I do the stove top work). Choux pastry caused much hilarity with Mr Social as he thought once made this pastry could go on our feet, I still don't think he believed my explanation of the French language but let's face it, it is more exciting to think of us walking round with choux buns on our feet at that age. He also did a great job. Then Mr Social actually volunteered to make the bread! Yes please. Mr Cheeky was even tempted into getting his hands stuck in even though he normally hates messy hands. Mr Social was impressed to see the sticky stringy mixture come together and form a lovely smooth silky dough.

So my morning had got off to a great start, choux buns and muffins made and pastry resting in the fridge and bread rising. I sent the boys to play as I cleared the kitchen for the next jobs. CRASH. Within 5 minutes I felt my heart sink, my great start was to be lost to an afternoon of tidying as a child had upset the large box of Lego and it's entire contents over the floor. Mr Cheeky has a particular fondness for Lego and was not pleased to see his models in bits across the floor so once cleared we set about remaking a police truck, the rest of the models can wait until next week. Mr Cheeky loves following the instructions and is quite competent in doing this by himself for the most part but he really struggled finding all the pieces in the box. But we persevered and have a police truck and a happy 4 year old to show for our efforts.

Back on with the rest of the day and we finished the quiches, made watermelon push up pops, and finished the bread. I spent my evening putting together some Mothers' Day gifts of candles, tea and biscuits in some homemade gift bags and boxes and made cards.

It wasn't the day I had planned for the boys and as I rouse from sleep this morning after being up for a lot of the night with Mr Smiley I feel somewhat intrepid about the day ahead. I still need to make the birthday cake for tomorrow and cater for 12 people tonight but I have my little helpers. Maybe I will keep them away from Lego boxes though.