Thomas the Tank Engine Cute Food Part 2

I created this delicous masterpiece for Hugo's party day with his family. 24 mini brownies - approx 6cm square (baked in my flash pan that Aunty Lyn couriered back from England for me - Yay for fantastic family!) decorated to be the carriages in Thomas' train. Note the co-ordinated wheels matching the goods they are carrying, the gummy bear passengers and coal. There were 12 with chocolate frosting and 12 with vanilla decorated in a variety of ways to give visual interest and a range of choices to the lucky party goers.


A big thanks to Ashley's Mum Evelyn for the brownie recipe! It was delicious with yummy chewy edges and a dense chocolatey centre - I will definitely be making it again.

Thomas the Tank Engine Cute Food

I made these mini 'Thomas the Tank Engine' inspired train cookies for Hugo's 2nd Birthday. They were yummy butter cookies with blue royal icing. Then I wrote on them with my foodoodler food colouring pens. I made 48 of them for him to take to Montessori to share with his friends on his birthday.


To go with the cookies were 24 chocolate mini cupcakes and 24 vanilla mini cupcakes, again in the Thomas the Tank Engine theme they were in red and blue paper cases and decorated with red and blue sprinkles.

I recently discovered that egg cartons are the perfect free packaging for mini cupcakes! How convenient. They fit perfectly, have lots of height so don't damage the frosting and fit a dozen!

Baby Led Weaning

As I sit watching Vienna eating her lunch, her faced smeared with marmite as she munches on freshly grown alfafa sprouts and a chunk of half eaten cucumber in her hand it amazes me that we still get questioned (with doubts) about baby led weaning. Baby Led Weaning is about allowing babies to learn to eat at their own pace the food that the rest of the family is eating, instead of specially prepared pureed baby foods. It is done all over the world and has been for many generations but now has a flash name and a website and book explaining it for you. We decided to follow this way of introducing Vienna to solids as it seemed simple, easy and just made sense to us. And yet ... we have had many people question us and doubt this way of life. Some of these questions have been presented directly to us and some not so. I think that it is because Vienna is a 'small' child that we have encounted so many negative responses, however Ashley and I were both 'small' as children and I think her size has a lot more to do with genetics. She is happy, healthy, energetic girl who is full of energy and is no way underfed. She does have a small appetite but she eats a wide range of healthy foods and doesn't over eat - even when it is a yummy 'treat' food. For me, who obviously has food issues, having a healthy attitute towards food and being able to understand and be in control of when she is full was a huge factor in this this choice. Now that Vienna is 17 months and I look back on her introduction to food I feel confident that we have done the right thing for us. Vienna controls what she eats, of course we give her a little help (especially with hard to manage things like yogurt), but she is in no way underfed or malnourished and no ... the reason is a 'small' child is not because she has been starved.

Dodgy Daddy Diaper

I can't wait to make these photos into a scrapbook page ...

that nappy was barely holding on ...

... and then, it lost the fight with gravity!

I am pleased to note that I have since replaced the elastic in all of Vienna's fluffy's since this day and now they help to keep up even the most dodgy of Daddy done diapers!

Clever People ...

... who aren't me!

Have been helping out my blog, the fanstastic and amazing Gypsy over at See, Share, Remember made me a header months ago and my clever Ashley put it onto my blog today ... finally ... perhaps I should have just asked him to do it months ago instead of not quite getting to it myself!

You may also notice the new button announcing that I am on the design team for Caz Dezign ... this was also created by the very clever Gypsy and added into my blog by the clever Ashley (coz he has more patience than me to figure out how to do it!).

Thanks heaps clever people!

Amazing

It amazes me everyday how much Vienna knows and how capable she is:

She can see something once and will copy it ... after just one time she knew that the ipod headphones go in your ear, and she put them in ...

She can follow instructions ... bring me your shoes so we can go out - 'shoes' ... can you put it in the washing bucket please ... that's not for babies can you bring it to Mum ... can you put it in the rubbish please ... can you put it in the recycling please ...

She loves to help ... put the groceries away in the fridge ... shut the door ... put the washing away ... pass the pegs and washing up to be hung on the line ...

She uses her initiative ... she will put shoes away in the wardrobe ... if she finds a cloth she will use it to clean ... she pointed the car beeper at the car and pressed the button but when it didn't work she tried to put the key in the key hole instead ... she will put on a bib to show me that she is hungry, or climb up and look for the boobies ...

She understands so much ... do you want this? - 'no' (shakes her head) ... let's go upstairs (she moves towards the stairs) ... lunch is ready (she goes to her table and gets in her chair) ...

It just goes on and on and on ... and it amazes me everyday that at 15 months she knows so much!

Christmas Cards 2010

On Christmas Eve Ashley reminded me of the fact that I hadn't made a Christmas card for Vienna ... so ...

while he was creating a QI inspired card for me



I quickly whipped up this totally cute card for Vienna.

It came together so quickly and yet looked sooooo fantastic - Yay! I love it when that happens.

PS Thanks the to the wonderful Gypsy who used her cleverness to take out the star light that looked like it was coming out of Vienna's head in the photo I used. You can check out Gypsy's amazing creative works at http://www.seeshareremember.blogspot.com/ she also does fantastic custom albums and is on the Caz Dezign design team with Glenna, Tania and Me.