Happy Birthday for Yesterday

The Chocolate Guinness cake finally got iced this morning and it seems to have worked pretty well! Mum was properly chuffed, she said it had been years since anyone had made her a cake for her birthday :) That made me happy too! And the cake was a success as well which was a HUGE relief - I had a bit of a panic when I baked it that I'd not cooked it long enough and it might not have been cooked in the middle. As it was, it was just perfect - nice and moist and just dense enough :)

The morning started off well. God Charley back off to sleep, and had had so many hours of having one or the other of the boys hanging off me that I needed a bit of space before getting up and Steve took Ben over to his side of the bed and Ben then fell asleep again! So I had an unexpected bit of free time.

I decided to make pulla (it's a sweet cardamom flavoured bread that we were introduced to in Finland) after I'd had a cup of coffee so I started getting everything ready but Ben appeared far too quickly. Sorted him out with some breakfast and TV, and then Charley woke up. Steve was poorly and not keen on getting up so I had to get Charley and sort his nappy out and feed him, so the pulla got sidelined.

Parents arrived and looked after Ben and Charley for a bit longer while I tried to finish the pulla, but by the time Steve appeared Charley was fed up and had poo'd again and I was still trying to mix all the flour into the dough.

Oh it was never going to work really!! The dough didn't rise, and unlike last time when it rose in the oven, it didn't this time. It's been consigned to the bin, sadly.

But the icing worked. Not too sweet, didn't taste of cream cheese, held its shape fairly well (probably could have done with beating for longer really), and the cake in the picture does look very Guinnessy!

Once Matt and Sue (my brother and his wife) arrived we headed off to the pub for round 2 of the birthday lunches. Not as good as yesterday I don't think, it didn't feel nearly as relaxed and we certainly didn't stay as long. But the food was ok! And we remembered just in time about the cake so we didn't get desserts.

Once home, the clear-up of the middle room continued. Basically everything has been shoved into the kitchen!! It still needs sorting out but at least we've been able to reclaim the living room.

AND it meant that we could get the Christmas tree down and the decorations!! So the tree is up - Ben helped - and decorated, and I'm rather glad that Ben isn't yet massively interested in helping decorate the thing. Although him endlessly moving all the baubles from one box to another did start to drive me a bit mad.

It's felt like Christmas this afternoon. Family around, the Wii out, laughing, feeling full, buffet tea of cheese and grapes and bread.

Ben got a splinter in his finger just at teatime, poor thing. He had a milky cuddle with me while Daddy pulled the splinter out - thankfully it came out easily with tweasers - we'd got a sharp knife ready to cut his finger off dig the splinter out if needed but thankfully it didn't get that far. Couldn't believe Steve told Ben he might have to cut his finger off. Ben was particularly distraught at that.

All fixed now though. He had a lovely cuddle with his daddy and brother while we watched Wall-E! He was very tired though and went up to bed not long after.

He went to bed at 9.30pm. But, happily. And actually said goodnight to everyone! He's barely eaten today so I was glad that he finished off a bowl of cereal before going to bed. And I gave him some brufen as well because his cough is still pretty nasty although thankfully like last night it didn't sound croupy.

The parents and siblings decided to head home once I was back downstairs and feeding Charley - but then Sue was on the phone to her family, and Matt and mum were raiding the kitchen, and we gave up and started a round of golf on the Wii. Which meant they stayed another hour!!

Steve's gone up to bed now. I'm left downstairs blipping, with Charley in his nest. At least the food has been put away and the dishwasher loaded and switched on. It's still probably a good idea to have a look round the kitchen before I go to bed though...!

I'll get yesterday written up quickly now ;)