And breathe......

Well we've managed to survive IT - hurrah!  The 'it' in question is the long-awaited sleepover birthday party requested by #1son.

OK - so it's only been about 6 weeks since his birthday - so not too bad (one friend has managed to postpone a party from January - that takes some respect - my defences would have been well and truly worn down by that point!).  Yesterday lunchtime we had 4 8-year-old boys added to our own three Kindling for a whole 24hours!

Unbirthday boy had been super excited for days - and of course that doesn't translate well to the actual thing as it's never quite what you wanted and the over-excitement is not a good recipe for a fun time for everyone - cue dictatorial direction of what people could/couldn't do or play with - where they could/couldn't go - who could sit next to him and so forth.

We took the boys to see Madagascar 3 at the cinema (in German of course) as the birthday treat - which apparently was very good - so says A as he got to see it, I was entertaining a 2-year-old during this (we tried to go shopping but although she was remarkably compliant there were too many people and I had lost the ability to shop yesterday.....that's another story in itself!)

So home post cinema, takeaway pizza ordered, delivered, eaten (wine for mummy and daddy - a fruity little Muscadet if you're interested!) and  the world was almost a better place!  Cake....(yay) of course was then required - it was a birthday celebration after all.....!

#1 son had requested 'The Titanic' as the theme for his cake - he's been somewhat obsessed with it this year due to the coverage of the centenary anniversary - don't get me (or rather him) started on the topic as he's very interested in the minutiae and specifics (in a way only 8-year-old boys can be) and I really don't know/don't care/can't be bothered to find out how many life jackets they had on board and how  effective they were.....

Anyway, I digress - a Titanic cake - why do I let myself in for these things - surely a clock would be so much better and easier...... Well after some deliberation, I felt a sinking scene would be easier to achieve than the boat itself and so here you have it....

What I did was to bake a square sponge and cut a decent sized corner off, this corner was then trimmed down to make a 'bow of a boat' shape and then fixed mid-sink to the middle of the remained of the square piece.  I then constructed an iceberg from mini-marshmallows, glued together with buttercream icing.... I built the iceberg up a bit more from that in the picture as the consensus was that it needed to be more imposing (if a marshmallow tower can indeed be imposing at all!)

So candles out, cake eaten, beds arranged around the bedroom, children in pj's and then we have some 'quieten down time' (ha, ha, ha) with a bit of Scooby Doo and then glow sticks provided and off to bed at a reasonable time - later than usual but not so late that we can't have our supper in peace. 

Now, I'm not naive enough to think they'd go to sleep anytime soon - but  hadn't banked on me needing to go to sleep before they did - chattering boys combined with wakeful 2-year-old do not make for a happy mummy!!  Still, the boys seemed to have a good night - and despite the last one not going to sleep until just before 1am, they were all bright and breezy when they were up at 7am this morning.....

Which is more than can be said for me!

So I think we've survived IT - just a few more minutes before they're due to be collected and everyone seems happy.  Will we do it again........that remains to be seen!