So, back to the M&Ms. I volunteered to make Clare's birthday cake as I had a bit of pinspiration bookmarked which I was itching to try. It was a number cake covered in M&Ms, created by Martha Stewart.

I cheated on the cake bit by going with a gluten-free chocolate cake and vanilla cake box mix. I had thought about trying out a couple of gluten-free cake recipes which I had pinned. I decided against this as I wasn't sure how much these cakes would rise. Gluten-free cakes are often quite dense and flat. I thought it would look funny if the two numbers were different heights.

October was breast cancer awareness month and Mars were selling pink and white M&Ms to raise money. I also stumbled across State of Origin M&Ms which are light blue and dark blue in colour. I was so happy to find some unusually coloured M&Ms I ended up buying 2kg of them, which in hindsight was overkill. But as I was going to be covering a cake with a pattern I didn't want to run out of a colour halfway through. I only ended up using about a third of the M&Ms... oops!

On Saturday evening I iced the cakes with butter cream (half a kilo of butter and a kilo of icing sugar!) and then covered them with M&Ms. Andrew helped with the decoration as it was getting late. We finished the Zero on Saturday evening and then decorated the Three the next morning during Evie's nap.

I found out the hard way that M&Ms do not refrigerate well. When I took the Zero out of the fridge in the morning the dark blue M&Ms had all discoloured. I replaced most of these dodgy looking M&Ms. I know they tasted fine because I ate a few of them as I took them off the cake (Mmm M&Ms and butter cream icing for breakfast). So if you want a pretty cake you shouldn't put it in the fridge.

Happy Birthday Clare! Hope you enjoyed your cake as much as I enjoyed making it.

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

Clare turned thirty at the beginning of November. We celebrated her birthday on the weekend with a BBQ in Timbrell Park in Five Dock.

I just seem to take photos of the kiddies now so I don't have a great photo of Clare at her party. So here is a lovely photo I took of her and Elliot on her actual birthday.

And here are some cute photos of the kiddies.

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

I've been a bit lax in my welcome to Elliot. Everyone deserves a fushmush post to mark their arrival. Clare and Brendan celebrated Elliot's arrival in mid-April.

The story of Elliot's birth is one fit for a TV sitcom. Clare actually went into labour at my pseudo baby shower. Her waters broke at my afternoon tea shower at The Victoria Room in Darlinghurst. Andrew was picking us up from the shower so I rang to ask him to bring something for Clare to sit on in the car. Andrew was already on his way so he stopped at a petrol station and got a wad of paper towels. Glamorous. It's going to be a funny story to tell Elliot and Evie when they grow up.




We held a guessing competition at Clare's baby shower and we have an almost winner. Most of us guessed that Elliot would arrive earlier in April. He held out for a week or so past his due date though. Elliot was born on the 18th April, 00:15 and weighed 3.5 kg. So Sue is the winner guessing 17th April and 3.35 kg. Well done Sue!

Babies! The baby boom continues. Clare and Brendan are expecting their first child in mid-April. I offered to organise a baby shower for Clare because (a) she is a good friend and (b) I love to organise stuff (have you noticed?). It wasn't a huge thing to organise though as I had heaps of people helping out. Clare's parents provided their home as the venue and I asked all the guests to either bring a plate for afternoon tea or a bottle of soft drink. There wasn't much for me to do except send out the invitations and organise some shower games.

We had a lovely afternoon. The weather was quite warm so we sat out in the garden. There were lots of afternoon tea treats and I can tell you now that I sampled every one (oops!). There were also lots of babies - Erin's twins Arnie and Rosie, Emily's little boy Marcus and Hyomee's little boy Marshall - so there were lots of opportunities for cuddles. An afternoon of girly chats, cake and baby cuddles. A winner in my book.

Congratulations Clare and Brendan. We're looking forward to meeting your new arrival. Soon! Exciting!

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

Finally got around to editing the photos from Clare and Brendan's wedding.

Andrew was lucky enough to be present when the professional photographers were taking the arty photos. Well, not exactly lucky. To take the professional photos, the bridal party went for a bit of a wander down the road and I was wearing ridiculously high heels. I called Andrew to come and rescue the bridesmaids. He drove down with flats for Ange and I. He stuck around too and drove the ladies back up to the ceremony. He's such a nice boy.

Here are some of my favourites from Andrew's photos. Andrew says it looks like I'm trying to eat the frisbee in the last photo.



More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.