Bryce's Birthday Party

Despite my good intentions, the planning for Bryce's birthday party got left to the last minute. With a team effort (and a day without school work!) we managed to pull it off quite nicely, I think!

On the day preceding the party, we went to several shops, purchasing the needed items for games and lunch, wrapped the pass the parcel, decorated the house, and made some of the food. Meanwhile, Mum dropped Jarrod off at technology to finish his project (which didn't quite make the last day of class the afternoon before), and picked up the de Boers' two Maltese dogs to look after since their owners were away. (Well, all except for Dieuwe, and he had to work all day, and was going to be out late that night so it would be good for the dogs to come here, see some people and get some exercise.)  

The morning of the party, none of us were up as early as we should have been, so we had a fast-paced two or three hours, cleaning the house, finishing the games (i.e. spread two bags of chocolate bars through the sandpit), and preparing the food. Unfortunately this party lacked much of the baking which usually characterizes any party I organise! 

The day before the party, we knew of only one family who planned to attend, however despite that, we ended up with a good turnout! 

 : : Lunch was somewhat late in coming, but hopefully it was worth the wait! : :

: : Unwrapping lots of cool presents - thanks everyone! : :

After reading this post on the Wissmanns' blog, I felt inspired to try my own hand at piping chocolate to put on a cake. (Historically, icing cakes hasn't exactly been my speciality.) And no, this isn't an ice cream cake; one new thing at a time, right? Maybe next time . . .! I printed a stencil (search Google images for a colouring picture lol) of the train, and also the text. We didn't have any wax paper so I substituted with baking paper, taping it to the bench, with my printed paper underneath. I melted chocolate buttons, and piped them through a plastic bag. Then the paper went into the freezer until I was ready to put the chocolate onto the cake. Overall, I was quite pleased. Next time though, I think I'll put the paper onto some kind of tray in the freezer; pipe the chocolate thicker - I had trouble with it cracking; and do the text cursive, so they're all joined together. It was a bit awkward having so many small, delicate pieces and I was glad I had two sets of the text!

: : Singing Happy Birthday : :