What's New?

I just realised that my last post was the end of November! I had better get more organised about this blogging thing - I just never seem to be at the computer with enough time to get this written in addition to everything else!

Since I last wrote - Nikh had a Chef Party and turned 11. he had about 25 friends (girls and boys) at The Park for the most incredible, well planned and well organised 4 or 5 hours! The kids came in and were given a Chef hat to wear. I had aprons made for them and they all wore these. They all looked so very cute! They all cut out cookies and made sausage rolls which were sent to the back kitchen for baking. then they helped make the pizza dough and the cheese pasta dish. I loved the shock on the kids' faces when they realised quite how hot it is in an industrial kitchen! After this, they put toppings on the pizzas and started eating the pizza and pasta as soon as they were served. They fell upon the food like a ravenous pack of wolves! Anyone would think they had never been fed!
Then came some sweet stuff. They made fruit trifles, iced cookies and cupcakes with a lot of finger-licking and slurping their tongues around their lips! Icing was squished out of the bags, slopped on tables and floor and generally ingested all over the place!
The kids got a bag with a new and updated recipe book collated by Nikh and he had mixed up a choc chip oatmeal cookie mix which the kids could cook for themselves at home. All they had to do was add butter, mix and bake.
I think this is a business I could easily go into! All credit to the chefs galore at The Park who came together to create and execute this extravaganza!!

The Ray turned four a few weeks later and we ended up having her party at home in the garden. There were about 30 kids with siblings, parents, grandparents, maids, drivers etc making the total number about 70 or 80 people in our garden. We had also invited all our neighbours to come down and have tea and cake and they were sweet enough to come!
I had prepared 5 different 'make and do' activities for the kids - they had to decorate their goody bag, make a silver shaker, make a door hanger for their bedrooms, make a mask and a hat. I had tonnes of foam shapes (Thank Goodness for Hobbycraft's and Woolworth's sales!!), I had cut all the templates out - which goes against the grain, but the thought of scissors out with this much chaos was too traumatic for me! The Ray's friends had to make and decorate all the items and make them personal. Glitter glue went splattering everywhere, stickers, bindis, tattoos and marker pens were wielded with devilish imprecision! Parents were very good and helped their kids with each activity and then laid them out to dry on the goody bags in one corner of the garden.
Foodwise - all home cooked - hummus with crudites, tomato pasta, jam sammies, raspberry jellies, cheese sarnies, cut out cookies in 'R's, hearts, planes, circles and starts (all the Ray's fave shapes!), mini cupcakes with Winnie the Pooh sugar decorations attached and all the homemade lemonade we could guzzle! Samosas with chutney added in for the adults and a picnic feast was prepared! I have to say that I made 85 jellies and I was left with 7. Not bad going kids!!
Well, I am now on a downward spiral until my birthday - but no biggie!

Biren had his in London in December - at the end of this year he hit a big milestone - so I guess we will be planning and baking and cooking again nearer that time! My Dad turns 70 this year too (in Nov) so another big one coming up!

Now I am trying to sort out an amicable resolution to issues at The Ray's school - she was blissfully happy there until the last few days - she is learning tonnes there. the teachers are fantastic and their curriculum has evolved and developed over the years since Nikh went there into something really worthwhile. I am sure it will all work out in the end!

Meanwhile - my new year's resolution is to write a monthly newsletter about my family and try and get something on the blog everyday - boring though it might be!