Birthday preparations

Tomorrow's the day! Thank goodness I changed my mind at the beginning of the week as to what we were going to do for Maia's birthday party. It is currently heaving it down so I think it'll all be inside tomorrow - unfortunately for Maia, because she loves to play cricket with all of her cuzzies! Can you believe for her 2nd birthday we were all outside and in a swimming pool?! We headed over to my mum and dad's this afternoon and got most of the things organised so that they'll be no mad panic tomorrow (and of course not forgetting the finale of the Bledisloe is at 10.30am our time!).

I have now made 52 cupcakes in 5 days - waaaay too many!

The actual birthday cake is the one pictured above - an old family favourite. My brother and I always used to ask for this (he's going to be 40 and I'm 36) and I made it for Maia last year. When we started talking about this year's birthday she said straight away that she wanted a clock cake - a tradition continues! The recipe book is a copy of an old Hamlyn one that my mum had and I learnt to cook things out of when I was growing up. One Easter I went to the Book-a-rama in Tauranga and found the exact same book for $2 - I think the ladies were somewhat nonplussed at how happy it made me but hey! I've since found out that my sister has found a copy too so it's a real family book.

Just put the cake in the oven so all that's left to do tomorrow is the icing and decorating the cupcakes - and the girl's are 'helping' with that! It's strange for me to feel so calm and to be ahead of the game - fingers crossed there's no big hiccups tomorrow!