Ava's 3rd birthday party

Gotta love a party loaded with sugar!! It's not often that I wilfully feed Ava bucket loads of sweets, but birthdays come only once a year, so why not make the most of it.

Bursie really outdid himself with this cake - although it wasn't gluten free so I am already paying for the cheeky slice I had to have. My contribution! I did the writing and a bit (ok a lot) of micro management of the final touches...poor Burnsie.  

Ava seriously lost her shit (but in a good way) when she saw it before that party this morning. She said it was the bestest cake ever in the whole wide world.

I should also mention that our rather fancy Ilve oven decided to pack it in the night before the party! Seriously???  It's only 4 years old grrrr!  Luckily the cake was done, it just meant that we had less savoury adult food as I had planned on baking a batch of GF mini vegetarian quiches. 

Ava and her best friend Marli had a ball playing together in the park. They have known each other since they were born. 

We didn't invite too many kids, just Ava's cousins and her best park buddies Marli and Emily. She had so much fun running around the park, playing chasing and bossing us all around too!

The kids enjoyed blowing bubbles, playing pass the parcel and snacking on a mix of both wholesome and sweet treats.

These fruit cups were really easy to make and were a hit with the kids and adults. We chopped up watermelon, cantaloupe, nectarines, grapes and berries that morning, put them into a big container, then filled the cups at the park. Simple, beautiful and really healthy!

For a twist on fairy bread, we made wholemeal hundreds and thousands pin wheels which disappeared pretty quickly.

To make these I asked the baker to cut the bread loaf long ways. You should have seen his face, he had never been asked to do this before and thought I was totally insane.

Actually, I think he was worried that his cutting machine would destroy the bread! However he cut the bread perfectly and it was so much easier to make them rather than cutting long ways yourself.

Tip!! Flatten the bread out with a rolling pin before you butter it and sprinkle on the hundreds and thousands. Once flattened out they are so much easier to roll up. Then you cut each roll into three pin wheels. So easy.

Can you spot the dodgy one I made???

The marshmallow sticks are another super easy and very pretty sweet treat. What kid doesn't like marshmallows??

Bunsie insisted on making home made LCMs. I am not a fan, they are sickly sweet and full of sugar. As you can imagine the kids loved them...

So it kind of backfired for Burnsie, he was hoping to have them all to himself.