The great Birthday Cupcake EXTRAVAGANZA!

Well, the firstborn is eight years old, and although this year she wanted a party, the idea of trying to get it organised in the last few days of the school holidays got me all in a lather. I am a motivated and dedicated mother (well, I like to think I am anyway), but I just couldn't manage to pull it off after a very active and busy 5 weeks. Alternatives had to be offered that would assuage the little miss, and I quickly realised that, at eight, it wasn't as easy to put her off the idea as easily as it was only a year ago! What to do? We settled on a horseriding expedition which was our "special activity" and on the actual day, we headed off to my sisters house for some one-on-one time with her fave aunty decorating cupcakes! Its a young girls dream come true (actually I think my sister really got a kick out of it too and she no longer technically qualifies as a "young girl"! Definitely young at heart though!). My sister has recently become a grandmother, and being a creative soul, has grasped the childrens party cake "thing" whole-heartedly. Once in the possession of a Womans Weekly Kids cake book, she was inspired and ready to roll. One thing about my sister though is she never ever EVER does things to the letter, there is always some little tweak, some little change that she has to make to improve a recipe, pattern, or activity. It makes me laugh. So, the day arrived. We headed off to her house, a good hours drive North of Sydney, for the great cupcake extravaganza. My sister had pre-baked dozens of itty bitty cupcakes, and had set out all the decorations in neat NEAT lines, and pre-mixed the icing colours before we arrived so all that had to be done was a quick gift giving, a quick cup of tea, and STRAIGHT INTO THE CUPCAKE MAKING. We began with the little teacups (my favourite) made from tick tock biscuits, marshmallows, freckles and fizzers, all stuck together with icing suger. They looked beautiful and incredibly cute lined up on the lacy trimmed plate. Then was the green frogs with the googly eyes. Green icing, tinsy marshmallows, and choc bits. I loved these 3-d looking creatures. Yellow pussy cats with licorice whiskers, which I loved but they weren't as popular as licorice isn't a fave with my kids. Blue icing "spiders", purple butterflies with "freckles" for wings, but the peace de resistance of course was the very very girlie pink iced cupcakes, with hand made pink roses, and pink edible glitter. Feminine, pretty, and cute to-boot. We made more of these than any other, and we ATE more of these than any others! Who would have ever thought that we needed edible glitter in our lives? Next was fairy bread and kids. After the fun of putting together the cakes, we had to share them, who better than to share with our little cousins? Ava, Cody and Lincoln came to visit and to help devour the feast. A bit of hide-and-seek, and chasings ensued to work off all that sugar (and glitter no-doubt!), a short dig in the dirt, and the celebration was complete. The firstborn had a ball! Mission accomplished. Once the kids went home for a sleep, my sister, myself and my kids zipped off to the local beach for some fun in the sun. What a perfect birthday and I'm eternally grateful to my sister for organising so much fun for the firstborn to enjoy. I think she'll remember this birthday for a long time yet. This isn't the first time my sister has made a serious batch of cakes either, I have included pictures of past batches which included red ladybirds, more pink piggies, fishies and bugs. I'm loving the revival of the cupcake, and hope that we have many further years yet of enjoying them! Happi eating!