My sister and I spent about 2 months trying to get organised to get some family photos done and finally managed to do it on Easter Monday.  Despite seeing each other at least every week!

It was also lots of work to get the kids in front of the camera and I have a sneaking suspicion that Davey is going to one of those people that hates having his photo taken.  Which is a pity, as he is absolutely beautiful.

Thanks guys for all your help, here are a couple of sneak previews and I’ll send you the rest soon.

Just had to add a couple more. We used this suitcase (which is one of two that I take with me to sessions) when Davey was only about 6 months old, so wanted to use it again.

And one reading a story toward the end of the session:

Thanks to Tash from Finishing Touch, for rescuing the hair situation for us!

Aylish enjoyed herself and was lucky enough to get a lollypop at the end!

We’re getting used to her new look and even quite like it. Although, I can’t get over how much older she looks, I can almost see her as the adult she might be one day.

I’ve never let the kids have scissors. Just something disturbing about a pair of intersecting knives in the hands of a child. That is, until we found these super safe scissors at the Reject Shop for $1 (or maybe $2) a pair. Won’t cut hair or skin – perfect I thought.

And they were great, made of some kind of plastic and would not cut hair or little fingers. The girls were both rapt, at first. Then we discovered they didn’t cut paper for very long either. How frustrating!

Being given a taste of scissors at home was the last straw for Miss Four and a half. She presented a case about being allowed to use scissors at school and about knowing how to be very careful. She even showed me how you carry scissors. And, she goes to a Montessori school, which is all about empowering the child.

I felt guilty I wasn’t giving her enough independence, she’s four and a half, not a baby any more. So I caved and these holidays she’s been allowed to use scissors. At first she was under strict supervision, but as time has gone on I came to think that she was very careful and knew what she was doing.

I got slack.

Then today, I was at my computer around the corner from where Aylish was cutting at the dining room table. I could hear *Snip* *Snip* *Snip* and smiled to myself, thinking about how quickly she was growing up and how great it was that I could trust her.

Then the snipping stopped and a cheeky little sprite popped around the corner. Looking very pleased with herself. “Look at me, mum”, she said and waited. I looked, knowing something was different, and then my jaw dropped. Her hair!!!!

“Its short, exactly how I wanted it”, she told me.

The funny thing is, we took her to the hairdresser earlier this year to get a haircut. I was hoping to get about a third cut off and maybe a bit of style cut into it but Daddy wouldn’t let them cut more than a couple of cms off.

I guess she has a style now!

Welcome to the most recent member of our extended family, my cousin’s baby Jack. Such a gorgeous temperment and beautiful skin!

Just a sneak peak of our session:

And one of the girls, who got along like a house on fire!

Hope to catch up with you guys again soon

An entry dedicated to my youngest baby, Emerald Star. She’s really growing up into such a little character, off in her own world most of the time.

I love this photo as it captures that faraway aspect to her, although her daddy doesn’t like it because he thinks she looks too sad:

And here’s one to prove she does smile!

Poor little darling fell out of the trolley today, you can just see the fat lip she got and the bruise on her chin. I was just thankful that it wasn’t worse!

Love her to bits!

Just my girls, enjoying the Australian summer sun.

Don’t they look like perfect models in this one!

Just a quick post to show off a beautiful image I got of my daughter’s class on their second to last day of school for the year.

Yes, this is the entire class – aren’t they a gorgeous group!

When I asked Miss Soon-to-be-2 what she wanted for her birthday, she asked for a cake.  More than once.  So, I set out to make her a cake that would be fun.  Mum had seen a pinata cake made on TV, which sounded perfect for my smash-happy toddler.  I sat down to research it and found that many people had issues with the cake not working.  After trawling the internet for solutions, I finally had a plan of how to make my cake.  And surprisingly, it actually worked, so here I am to share the process with you!

With a few photos added as well, of course!

First I started with a basic cake, made pretty low and wide.  I allowed it to cool, then iced with white chocolate.  I built a wall around the edge with chocolate pieces broken from a Smartie-filled block, then drizzled white chocolate over that, then topped with peanut m&ms.  The idea was to create a wall to hold the lollies in.

After waiting for the chocolate to set, I placed a pile of lollies on top of the cake.

Next, I had to make the dome to go over the top.  I took a large metal bowl that sat nicely over the cake and greased it lightly with olive oil.  Make sure there are no thick patches of oil, as this will come off onto the chocolate.  I put the oiled bowl into the freezer for about an hour.

I used two packets of white chocolate melts, and melted them down over a saucepan of steaming water.  Once fully melted, I took the bowl out of the freezer and poured the melted chocolate inside.  I then swished the chocolate around until the interior of the bowl was covered, and popped it back in the freezer.  For an hour.

The next part was the scary bit – would the chocolate come out of the bowl?  I had read mixed reports, so was worried, and had my husband preparing some warm teatowls to aid the process.  However, when I flipped the bowl and sat it over the cake, the chocolate just slid out of its own accord. Yay!

All that remained was to decorate.  To hide the messy edge at the bottom, I stuck unmelted chocolate melts on with melted chocolate.  Then my big idea was to dye the white chocolate with food colour and paint on the cake with it.  But adding the food dye made the melted chocolate all gluggy, even while sitting over steam.  I used it anyway …

The not-so-perfect writing was painted on with dark chocolate and the little faires added to the top for fun.

Then we used a cupcake to hold the candles.

And finally the big finale – smashing the cake wide open.  The birthday girl was surprisingly reluctant to to smash the cake at all and needed big sister and dad to help.  Once they saw the result though, its been the talk of our house ever since!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the story and good luck if you decide to make your own – the kids will love it!

Side note:  The chocolate as icing on the inner cake was not a great idea, as it was impossible to cut!  I made a second cake for her the next day (had people over to celebrate) and used pre-made white icing instead (dyed pink) and that was much better while still being dry enough to sit the lollies on.

Here is an example of what you can do with the textures:

I used the soft moss and orange rock 5 textures.

There are tutorials all over the web on how to use textures but unfortunately I don’t have links to any handy (I recently downgraded my system from Vista to XP and lost all my bookmarks – no idea where Firefox stores them). If you’re interested in me writing some basic instructions out, please comment here.

Original image is here

Did a little photo shoot with the girls and their new tutus yesterday.