Olly's 4th birthday

So Olly turned four yesterday, I can't believe it.  It doesn't seem five minutes since we were at the hospital having him.

And so today, this is him with his presents at 7am.  He looks so grown up!

 His new playmobil castle took an entire hour for me to set up, but he played with it for ages, and told everyone who came to see him today at his birthday party about it, so I guess it was money and time well spent!

So, back to the cake disaster...this is the sorry sight that greeted me this morning...

 

 

It looked worse than in this picture.  I managed to rescue the top bit with the balustrade part that took me ages to make, and the whole bottom part got jammed in a large tin for chocolate/cake emergencies, though after today, I can honestly say it will be a long time until I fancy cake again!  One after the other (as I have only one cake tin that size) I baked three more chocolate cakes, stacked them and filled them with chocolate buttercream and this time put the whole thing in the fridge.  While it was chilling, I made some of the fiddly bits to go on top:

 

 

And finally, here it is!

 

 

What do you think?  It went down well at the birthday party!  Fancy dress, everyone came as pirates of course.  I didn't get a picture of Harry, but here's Olly:

And here's baby Hannah, who did steal the show a little...

Doesn't she look gorgeous!  The bandana didn't stay on that long, and she kept trying to eat the frills on her dress.  Aren't the pirate boots amazing?  My very talented mother crocheted them for me!  Here's another couple of examples of her talents:

Pirate bunting!  This are just samples. but the whole thing was brilliant!

The party went well.  We played musical bumps, walk the plank, pin the eye patch on the parrot, and pass the parcel.  After tea we also had a treasure hunt for hidden treasure.  I wish I'd taken a photo of that.  I filled a old wooden box with leather hinges with chocolate coins and roses for jewels and hid it in a cupboard.  I printed out a treasure map on 8 sides of A4.  On the back was a large blown up picture of the cupboard.  The children had to find all 8 pieces of the map, and piece them together, then on the back was the location of the treasure.  They loved filling their party bags with the treasure, but I must say, it broke my heart to cut the cake!

So now a glass (or bottle) of wine and Downton Abbey!  What a lovely day.