Monday, September 17, 2012

Princess Birthday Party

On Saturday we had Beth's 3rd birthday party and it was brilliant. She is a very girly girl now and I knew she would like a princess theme so I went all out! The table looks a little messier than it did at the start but you can get the idea. I got the palace scene setter from www.thebigparty.ie and it looked fantastic. I also got 4 princesses that hung on the wall. Aurora is to the left of the table, bit of a glare from where I was standing but she looked great. Cinderella was at the front door, another princess at the back door and one to the right of the table.

There were lots of sweets, pink marshmallows, pink lemonade, sandwiches, rice krispie buns and some hot party food.

Of course, the cake was the centrepiece of the table, the big pink thing! it was a rainbow cake and here are a few photos of the making of it.
 Cake mix done, I separated it into 6 and used a different colour for each one. I used liquid food colouring. The experts suggest using gel food colouring but I did a trial run a few months ago and was pleased with how it turned out so just stayed with the liquid ones.


After baking I sandwiched the layers together with buttercream. It was delicious. Butter, icing sugar, a few drops of vanilla essence and a little milk. Yum :-) 


Another photo of it stacked. 

My little princess taking a breather with a bag of sweets. 

The finished product. I know it was a little lumpy but hey, I didn't mind. I was just worried how it looked inside. Everyone knew I had attempted a rainbow cake and were gathered round as I cut it.  

And here it is. Not bad if I do say so myself :-) 

 Tasted quite nice too!

Beth had a great day and got loads of presents. I really enjoy putting a big effort into her birthdays. Kids parties are so much fun!!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

In The Irish Times Today

I wrote a piece for The Irish Times on my experiences as a single parent. It was a hard article to write and I'm a little nervous about baring my feelings so publicly.

Still, it's a piece I wrote and it's in a national newspaper :-)

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2012/0905/1224323609974.html

Hope you like it!