A bug and insect 2nd birthday - Part 1!

We had decided that this years party theme was a 'bug and insect garden party'.  Unfortunately, since someone chose to be born on the Winter equinox the garden wasn't a particularly nice place to be but we had a nice indoor party and lots of bug and insect themed food.

I typically had too many ideas for food and decorations and was running around a bit like a headless chook in the week leading up to the party, having only just gotten back from overseas and trying to catch up on washing, cooking and cleaning. I had premade and frozen some of the food before we left but there was a lot that couldn't be done until the last minute.

Luckily it all worked out beautifully and Astrid loved all her bug and insect food and decorations. She had been most excited about her 'lady bug cake' and had been telling everyone about it for weeks. It was chocolate mud, covered in fondant, with sugar sticks for the antennae (bought back from the nice French restaurant her parents went to in Fiji the other week).

I think Mr Ladybug looked very fetching, don't you? He tasted pretty good at any rate. Anto did an excellent job with the fondant, although now I've had a few tips from some friends I think we can improve for next time.

To match in with the ladybug cake we decorated with red, black and white. Astrid loves balloons (like all toddlers, seemingly) so we had plenty of balloons, along with red, black and white plates and napkins. Here is the dining room all set up and the cake and drinks table ready to go. We had white and red lolly bags for all the kids - with wind up bugs, bug lollies and chocolates for the bigger kids and bibs, socks and bubbles for the babies. The adults all got a hand-made cookie in the shape of a bee or bug. I didn't make these, they were custom ordered from the very talented Kerry at Crumbs of Yum

For the sweet food we  had:
Honey Bee Cupcakes
Honeycomb Chocolate Crackles with butterfly toppers
Honey Joys with honeycomb and bees
Marshmallow Spiders
Lady Bug and Bee Cookies
Worms in Dirt (Choc Mousse with Oreos)
Caterpillar and Dragonfly Pikelets (with Jam and Cream)
Caterpillar Fairy Bread
Bug chocolates

Just though there was something to dilute all the sugar, we did have plenty of savoury food too! For the non sugar addicts we had:
Ham and Cheese Pizza Snails
Meatball Caterpillars
Sausage Roll Caterpillars
Spinach and Ricotta Triangle Butterflies
Grape Caterpillars
Olive and Tomato Ladybug crackers
Butterfly Sandwiches (Cheese, Sweet Gherkin and Snow Pea Sprouts; Ham and Cherry Tomato)

So, as you can see, no one went hungry! The food didn't actually take too long to make. We made bits and pieces of it most nights the week before the party (like the fondant bees, the spiders, the butterfly toppers and the pikelets). We decorated the cake the night before (which I had made and frozen before we went away) and we just did a lot that morning.

Astrid helped Grandma make the honey joys and chocolate crackles during her visits that week and I just decorated them. Grandma (aka Lorraine) made the grape caterpillars and the very trendy sandwiches. My very patient husband arranged the hot food into butterfly and caterpillar shapes as we served it (I'm sure he now just rolls his eyes at me when I make these silly requests)! I must say though that making a heap of dragonfly and caterpillar fairly bread and pikelets was very time consuming and annoying and next year I've vowed to have a square or circle theme!  I also went through about 6 different ideas to get the marshmallow spiders to work but got there in the end, even if I did have to cut up 80 pretzels!

Stay tuned for party 2 and everyone enjoying the food and celebrations.

Favourite Photo Friday - 28/6/13

I've missed a few photo Friday's recently, with being away and birthday preparations. So, I thought I'd better post a photo today.  A quick photo from our Fiji trip. This was taken at sunset during our first week on Taveuni, at Paradise resort.  It was lovely watching the sun go down every night before we headed to dinner!

D7000 with Tamron 12-24mm f2.8
ISO 800, focal length 12mm
Exposure: 1/1250 @ f/8.0

Birthday sneak-peak

Astrid turned 2 on Saturday and we had a bit of a party for her that afternoon. You know the sort of shin-dig you throw together at a moments notice........ well not really. I like to make everything difficult for myself so of course we had a bug and insect theme, matching decorations and lots of themed food.

 It was a wonderful afternoon and everyone seemed to have a great time, particularly the birthday girl! I'm working my way through the photos and will post them over the coming days (along with a heap of photos from our Fiji trip) but I'm way behind on my editing and blogging due to being a little bit flat out in the last week.

So for those who are wanting a sneak peak of what we did for her party, here is a quick pic of her cake (chocolate mud, which tasted pretty good). I'm proud to say that the cake decorating was started and finished in 1.5 hours the night before her party. The end result was not as good as some of my very talented friends can pull off but not too bad for us cake decorating amateurs!

2 years old today!

Two years has gone by so quickly! It's hard to believe that 2 years ago we bought this tiny thing home from the hospital just hours old.......

This time last year when she turned one I could hardly believe how much she had grown. She seemed so far away from our little newborn, yet she was still very much a baby and not yet a toddler.

Sometime while we were travelling in Europe we both concluded that she had hit toddler-dom. All of a sudden she was very grown up (or so she thought)!

These days there isn't much baby like left about her. Her speech is amazing, she understands and remembers everything (to our detriment it would seem) and is fiercely independent and bossy (wonder where she gets that from?).  The last year has gone so fast and Astrid has grown up so much.  I can't even begin to imagine what the next year will be like.

This time last year she was only just crawling and had not yet learnt to walk. Now she runs, jumps, swims and climbs stairs.  This time last year she had 20 odd words, now she has thousands and speaks in sentences and you can have entire conversations with her. This time last year we still had to guess what she wanted and needed. Now she tells us (often in excruciating detail).  This time last year she was cute as a button and now she is utterly adorable.

In her 2 years Astrid has completed 28 flights (12 International), 16 International train trips and visited 9 other countries.  She is already a seasoned traveler and loves nothing more than checking out new hotels, new cuisine and new people and places.  We aren't sure what her 3rd year will have in store for her but she has already told us she wants to go on more planes and to more hotels so we will have to see what we can do about that.  She is also very excited about becoming a big sister and can't wait to meet her little brother or sister. It's going to be a big and exciting year for her, and us too!

Happy 2nd birthday Astrid, we hope you have had as much fun this past year as have had and we can't wait to see what your third year has in store. Please be kind to your parents in the next year, we might be a bit tired!