Princess turns 4

My gorgeous baby girl is now 4! 

This girl is amazing! She is strong willed, funny, cheeky, kind hearted, independent, a fire cracker, gentle, loud. She drives me crazy and then makes me laugh, pretty much all in the same breath. She loves reading, loves, Frozen and Elsa and Anna, fairies and princesses. She is who she is and she isn't keen to change for anyone.

Poor Eliza woke this morning with red puffy eyes and said that one was really gunky when she woke up but cleaned it away. 

Good old conjunctivitis. She has also had a cough for a couple of weeks. After Daniel and Alexander both being put on antibiotics last week and Alexander having conjunctivitis too I decided to take Eliza to the doctor this morning. The poor thing was so sad that she couldn't go to preschool to be with her friends and share her cuppa-cakes that I made her yesterday.

We calmed her down and eventually had her understand that she was too sick to go to preschool but she would have a special day at home. We then did presents. She read the birthday book messages and Daniel gave her a card that he specially made during rest time yesterday. Too sweet!

She then was very keen to open her presents. We just gave her one to start with.

She was very excited and happy to get her own Olaf doll.

Everyone had a good laugh at the comments that Olaf made.

We then headed to the doctor and James took Daniel to school with Alexander. Eliza wanted to bring her Elsa toys that she got at her party with her. (will write about the party at the end of this blog post). She looked so grown up!

The doctor put her on antibiotics and eye drops. Hopefully she will feel better tomorrow and can head to preschool. 

We came back home via getting some cuppa-cake treats. When we got home Eliza opened the rest of her presents - some dolls house toys. I hope that she has a love of playing with her dolls house like I did as a little girl. She liked setting it up with me but only played with it for a little bit.

She then wanted to have her cuppa-cake. We joined her with our own cuppa-cakes and Alexander had a corn thin.

After morning tea we set up her dolls house toys in her dolls house.

The bathroom

The kitchen

Playing with her dolls house

Eliza wanted to take a photo of Alexander and I

Alexander enjoyed the new toys too

After a short play Eliza wanted to watch Frozen (again). Being her birthday I obliged.

Part way through she wanted to sit on my lap to watch it so I enjoyed the snuggles with her during the movie.

After Frozen we had some lunch and then it was rest time. Eliza played with her dolls house for some of rest time, enjoyed dressing up, reading, drawing, playing.

After rest time we headed to school to pick up Daniel then came home for a short while before Nana and Poppy came around to look after the kids so James and I could have our parent teacher interview at school. When we got back home Auntie Jenny came around for a quick visit to see the birthday girl and give her another present. Eliza was excited to see that her gift was a Fairy Garden. We can't wait to set it up soon.

And before she left we had a quick Elsa cuppa-cake too.

Eliza then Facetimed with Nana J and Boompa. During the Facetime she openned her present from them and was SOOOOOO excited to get an Elsa dress. She had to put it on straight away!

My gorgeous princess

We had dinner of spag bol, Eliza's request (well she asked for pasta but meant this) and then it was bedtime. So it ended up being a lovely day, even though it wasn't the day that we planned. We will see how tomorrow goes.

On the weekend we got together with family to celebrate Eliza's 4th birthday. In the lead up to her party I asked Eliza what cake she wanted and she asked for an Elsa cake. This was tricky as it doesn't appear in the Woman's Weekly birthday cake book. I looked at Google and found some different ideas. Some had toffee that you needed to make (no deal), a lot had fondant (again, no deal). I came across one that used chocolate and thought I'd give it a go. The chocolate was used to make the ice shards. I tried melting chocolate melts.

They melted and stood in the cake... but then after 10 mins they had flopped.

Back to the drawing board.
I then read that if the chocolate didn't have cocoa butter then it should be fine to melt and re-set without tempering it. Milky Bar doesn't have cocoa butter so I decided to give that a go.

Half of it lasted 20mins which was an improvement but still not enough for my liking to go on the cake.

Then I found that you can temper chocolate in the microwave - a much less daunting approach so I decided to give that a go.

After an hour they were still standing. I tried with some more of the shards and they also lasted over an hour. Winner!

So on Friday night I started to make Eliza's Frozen cake. I iced the cake with butter cream and then used the chocolate shards to decorate around the outside. I used blue food colouring on some and blue jelly crystals on some too to add colour.

I also found on Gumtree some Frozen figurines which I knew Eliza would love because she often plays with them at preschool. They worked perfectly! The cake was set and just needed to have some more chocolate shards behind the figurines to look like ice sheets. I was quite nervous about whether the chocolate would stay upright but had to wait and see.

In the morning James organised the kids while I put together a few bits and pieces. We then hopped into the car around 9:40am to head to the local park for a lovely party with family. We managed to grab a table so set up the food while the kids had fun on their bikes.

The birthday girl

Nana, Poppy and Oscar arrived first and occupied the kiddies. Swings and bikes were popular.

It was lovely to watch Alexander's excitement as each person arrived. He just wanted to say hi to each person.

Eliza with Grayma

Oscar enjoyed some extreme swinging.

Eliza was pretty quiet and a bit awkward with everyone. She was a bit sick but also a bit overwhelmed I think.

The food was popular.

Mum and I then dashed back home to finish and bring the cake. I left it at home so that the chocolate wouldn't melt. Fortunately it worked! And it looked pretty nice. Eliza was very excited to see it, her Elsa cake.

We then lit the candles and sang 'Happy Birthday' to her. She then blew out the candles.

Eliza was very excited to get her Frozen toys. She cuddled them and set them up to watch her eat her cake.

Figurine cuddles

Picking up some of the chocolate

Cousins

Alexander liked his time with Nana and Poppy.

Then it was present time. Our little girl was so very spoilt! She got some awesome presents. It was lovely watching Oscar help read each of the cards to Eliza.

Reading the cards

Cousins

She was very excited to get an umbrella to design

She got a Hungry Caterpillar boardgame which the kids were very keen to play together. It was nice watching them play together and it is a fun game.

Eliza won!

I'm so grateful for our families and the way that the love and care and value our kids. Such a special time!

Saying bye to Aunty Megan

Saying bye to Mark

With Auntie Sue

Daniel made a card for Eliza saying he hoped she had fun at her party

With Nana and Poppy

Daddy and Alexander

Playing hide and seek

Cousins :-)

By the end of the party Eliza was getting quite sleepy and quiet. She had some lovely snuggles with Daddy.

When we got home, Eliza was able to watch Frozen. She was so excited and held her figurines for the whole movie.

I'm so glad that she loved her Frozen birthday party. I can't wait to see what is instore for my little 4 year old. I'm so amazing things!


Happy birthday Eliza!