Recent karate grading.....and the flu

Think the 'lil guy has the flu.

The ACTUAL flu.

Yup, Dr Google told me that, he fits the symptoms to a tee. Or is it a T?

Poor baby, he's now so congested I can hear him snoring from here in the lounge.

Snotty 'kerchiefs everywhere, much to his older brother's disgust.

And we're going camping again soon, too, being school hols and all. 

Hopefully, he makes a miraculously quick recovery....

Now, the karate grading.

That's him in the foreground, with the brown belt.

It's a white belt class (complete beginners) but he's allowed to wear his brown belt which he gained in the Little Dragons, which is the class for 4-6 year olds. Which he joined when he was 3 and left when he was 4.

Yep, super karate kid that one.

He officially graded to red belt (next belt up from white) while he was still 4. 

He loves it (most of the time) and now has his sparring gear as well. Which he looks pretty funny in, seeing as it's generally sized for 6 yr olds and up. Although he's the youngest, he's not actually the smallest, being that he's a giant of a kid. His little friend  is several months older but about a foot shorter, that's him in the front row in the purple belt.

He looks so little opposite his sensei. 

Ah, a proud mummy moment for sure.

How to make a Trash pack birthday cake

Little Mr R has officially turned 5! 

Given my lack of cake decorating prowess, I sneakily suggested to him that maybe he'd like a trash pack themed birthday cake. Have you heard of trashpacks? 

No? 

Little wee collectible rubbery characters in the guise of various types of gross trash/rubbish.

Easy.

Take one large flat birthday cake. I used my favourite birthday cake recipe,  as always.

Mix up some butter icing, and add enough random colours, plus a little cocoa, to make the icing an icky brown colour.

Make up some green jelly and let it set.

Place a large trash pack bin somewhat off center on your iced cake.

Fill the bin with green jelly and spoon random blobs of jelly onto the cake.

Pile on small handfuls of smarties, and place some jelly snakes strategically around, so they can slide through the trash and slime.

Dot the trash pack characters around and put one or two in the bin.

Let a snake slither out of the bin and sprinkle a few smarties in there too.

See? Not exactly a masterpiece though, but the boys thought it was the best. cake. EVa.
Probably because they got some new trashies out of it, but oh well.

Too easy.

Please 'scuse the very ordinary photography...

And now Mr about-to-turn-8 has requested the same cake, so I get to do it again.

Maybe I'll even get creative and try it with a round cake next time. 

Ooh, livin' on the edge!



27/04/2013

Trash pack cake take 2. And no, it's not round.

Here's Mr H's cake, now he's 8, more of the same really.

The icing on this one was tidier, I had a 'complaint' last time that the icing was too thick and gooey, so this time I actually followed my buttercream icing recipe properly and smoothed it on more thinly.

Hmm, less authentically trashy looking perhaps but it appeals to the must have-order-and-everything-tidy side of me.

The bin is full of red jelly instead of green (specific request from turning-8-year-old) and I didn't put jelly on the cake this time.

The jelly on the last cake made the cake soggy in patches after a while, and seeing as I knew not much of the cake would be eaten right away, we left the jelly off to serve separately.

I threw a few clinkers and chocolate covered sultanas on too, more because I had them left over from another project rather than any inherent sense of design, but they work well.

I find the combo of coloured smarties and small rubber characters very appealing, I am just a fan of smarties altogether, they taste great, I love their size and crunch and they make anything that you put them on look snazzy. And they make decorating kids cakes too easy.

Yay for smarties!

I'm doing a whole30

Have you heard of the whole30? It's clean, strict, paleo eating for 30 days. 

Something I want to do, seeing as I've let some poor snacking habits sneak in of late. 

Whittaker's chocolate anyone? 

Don't go and look at that website if you're hungry by the way. Jus' warning ya.

So, I'm eating some of these....

Not too much of this....

Made this a couple of times...
Chocolate almond green smoothie
(Doesn't count as real chocolate...does it?)

Quite a few of these...

None of this...

Adding these to lots of things....

None of THIS...

Some of this...

As well as plenty of nuts, coconut oil, red meat and chicken.

Yeah, hardly deprivation is it?

I'm feeling great though, but then again, I usually am.

I won't bore you with any more details of it, but if you're interested I'm writing up what I'm eating and any results/observations here....My whole30.

Part of the whole30 is also getting enough sleep, so off to bed for me.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....