Christmas: Biscuit Tree!

As mentioned in my last post. I really really LOVE Christmas. Also since having Hudson I have come to appreciate it so much more and even though he is still pretty oblivious to the concept I have been getting a kick out of little things with him to try and get him into the spirit: Santa visit & pic, little chocolate advent calendar where I give him his tiny chocolate after his lunch and say 'Only ___ more sleeps until Santa comes', getting him a Christmas book of some kind each week when we do the grocery shopping, and turning the Christmas tree lights on just after bath time and singing some form of Christmas carol then followed by reading a Christmas story.

So it's only fitting that with my love of cooking I make some little Christmas goodies. Today I give you:
The Christmas Bikkie Tree!

Ingredients:

Biscuits-
250g butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon of coconut essence
3 1/2 cups of self raising flour
Green colouring
1/2 cup white choc drops

Also need green icing and small amount of yellow icing (see link to this post for icing recipe ) (I flavoured icing with peppermint essence)

And any desired decorations for the tree.
I used 'Red & Green Christmas Tree' shaped sprinkles, green edible glitter & silver cachous balls.
Also going to need various size 'Star' cookie cutters.

Firstly make biscuits:
1)Cream butter, sugar and essences together with beater on medium speed.
2) Add eggs and beat in one at a time.
3)Add green colouring and mix well.
4)Gradually stir in sifted flour
5)Roll into dough and knead well. Cut with various star shaped and put onto a lined baking tray. Place into the biscuits white choc bits and bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden.
My tree consists of 15 biscuits with 8 different sized star shapes.

Once biscuits are cool and reading to decorate get some icing into a piping bag with a regular 'star' tip and place a few drops of icing under the largest biscuit to secure to the board.
Then place another of the same size rotated so that the points of the 2nd star sit in between the bottom star's points.
do long strokes of icing on the exposed points of the bottom star's points and decorate with glitter and sprinkles.
Repeat process with remaining biscuits going from largest to smallest. With the last smallest star decorate with yellow icing and place upright on the top.

Smells amazing.....yep not eating it myself. ....Taking to my cousins' house today as a little Christmas surprise. :)

Star Salad...

Well leading up to Christmas there is so many fun things to do, putting up the Christmas tree, sending out Christmas cards, taking Huddo to see Santa, practicing some new baking goodies to give as gifts for Christmas, gift shopping and getting ready for our little holiday away. But if there is one thing that I love about this time of year in Australia is the FRUIT! Fruit is so juicy and fresh and Christmas means one particular fruit for me.... MANGOES! mmmmmmmmmmmm Mangoes (Homer Simpson-like-drool moment).

As mangoes are quite high in natural sugars I like putting them with honeydew and rockmelon which are a little lower in natural sugars so with that I give you 'Star Salad'.... simply cut desired fruit with star shape cutters...

This is the little bowl Huddo had before his peanut butter toast. (Mummy's breakfast is the off cuts in between)...Note: week 6 of running for me this week. Even been adding in 3 hours a weeks of pilates dvd time.  I've lost 6kg now. Pretty happy. :)

As mentioned above also I took Huddo for his annual Santa photo.. last year he was only 14 weeks old when I took him so he didn't really care too much about the situation, this year however he wasn't too keen on Santa and insisted on sitting on the arm of the chair rather than his lap. Also last year I put him in a cute little Christmas onesie. This year well he's just such a little dude now I went with the simple santa hat and 'Xmas Rocks' Shirt! :)

Cakes...Cakes and more Cakes...

It has been kiddy birthdays galore in my family in the last month and here are the cakes I've made to help celebrate....

First up was my little brother Deacon's 9th birthday and he is into skateboards so I made him a skateboard cake with the logo of his fav skateboard brand 'Zero' on it. ...Don't mind the wheels, they should've been spun 90 degrees but oh well you got to look closely.
For this cake it is a 2 layered vanilla sponge with jam in the middle and covered in vanilla buttercream icing.

Next was my cousin Harley's 7th birthday. Now he is a massive North Queensland Cowboys fan. (For the international readers it's a Rugby League Team) So for him I made a 'Cowboys Footy' cake with the logo and his name on the footy.

This was a vanilla sponge cake with vanilla buttercream icing.

Then next was my cousin Cheyenne's 13th birthday. I made a white chocolate mudcake with lemon flavoured buttercream icing.

The flowers are a little questionable but I it was good to practice them after doing the course.


For those that are interested the recipe for the 'Buttercream Icing' I use is as per advised in the Wilton course book.

Ingredients:
190g vegetable shortening (need to get from cake supplier I go to How to Cook)
450g pure icing sugar (make sure icing sugar is very soft and not hard and lumpy)
1 teaspoon of CLEAR vanilla essence (clear is best as it doesn't discolour your icing) Can also use any other clear essence of choice.
10g meringue powder
7-8 tablespoons water

1) Whip vegetable shortening, essence and water together until well combined and creamy.
2) Add meringue powder and icing sugar and beat on low for a minute until smooth and mixed. If icing is quite stiff add water by the tablespoon until desired consistency.

A Quick Catch Up.....

Well the last month seems to have disappeared. Particularly when I seem to have swapped my blogging time which is when Huddo naps for also having a nap myself. After a fitness goal FAIL with my running aim back in August/September I have recently reassessed and tried to get back on the fitness bandwagon. I took on board the theory of 'stupidity is when you do the same thing and expect a different result' and took another look at how I could incorporate fitness into my day and on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I have been getting up at 4.50am and out jogging by 5am.

I was quite candid when I started this blog about wanting to lose 6kg. Well I'm not going to disclose the new figure I would like to shed but let's just say my cake course and baking up a storm over the last few months boosted the number a touch. But after 3 weeks of running and avoiding carbs after 3pm I'm starting to shed a few slowly but surely. However, getting up early has been making me a little sleepy by 10am which is when Huddo usually goes down for a sleep so once he's down and quick touch up of the housework is done I've been going down for nap myself. Oh the life of being a stay-at-home mum. :)

For the Love of Cupcakes...

It seems to be my thing now that when I'm having someone over or going to someone's house I make a batch of cupcakes. The delicious vanilla ones from Paris Cutler's Planet Cake book. However, I've been experimenting with different essences for flavoring the icing to mix it up and so far so good have not had a disaster yet!

Last week when visiting my Uncle Pete, Auntie Wen and my 7 cute cousins I took a batch of cupcakes with yellow passionfruit icing and took the opportunity to practice 'drop flowers'.

Yesterday I had my good friend Melinda & her gorgeous daughter Emilia over for a playdate and made a half batch of green cupcakes with lemon flavored icing. (Emilia in particular enjoyed these little yummies)

Some Fruit Iceblocks for Teethy Times....

A couple of weeks back Huddo managed to cut 5 teeth in 6 days. He was quite good considering but a little grizzly. Thank goodness that now he is only 1 tooth away from having all but his four 2 year old molars.
So I made him some fruit iceblocks to suck on after lunch and dinner to help with pain and he wasn't too sure about them at first but then LOVED them and had quite a bit of fun eating them and yes making a mess.

I made 2 different types of iceblocks.

1) 6 apples cooked and blended 1/4 of a cup of the new 'V8 Smoothie w/ Pineapple, Passionfruit & Banana.
2)1/4 of a watermelon, 1/2 of a rockmelon, a punnet of strawberries and a 1/4 of a cup of 'V8 Tropical Juice' blended well in a food processor (no cooking needed).

Then I scooped the mixes into an iceblock container and put into the freezer.

'You want me to do what exactly with this thing?'

'I don't know Mum Mum I'm not too sure about this'

 'Let me try do it myself'

 'This ain't so bad....actually it's quite good'.......

A Little Parenting Inspiration...

One of my favourite things about facebook is the inspirational pics with quotes that my friends post. This week my friend Kath posted a gem of a parenting tip!....

I certainly think I'm going to print this out and frame it. ....... :)

My new found love of 'Chia Power'...

With my love of cooking comes my love of great ingredients to use. Especially things that have great health benefits. I do however find it a little overwhelming from time to time all these so called 'Super Foods'. I never like how weight loss fads are attached to them but finding something that I can add to little meals for not just Huddo but for Troy & myself to gives us a bit of an extra boost......hey I'm all for that!

About two Sundays ago out doing the groceries with Huddo we did our new thing of going to Boost Juice and getting him a little banana smoothie to sip on while I do the groceries. They offered me a 'free chia boost' now I know they aren't going to offer poison but I don't like eating things particularly supplement-based things without knowing what they are all about. So they gave me a card and after 20 seconds I said 'Yeah for sure throw a bit of that in his smoothie!'.

I then proceded to go to the health food store for another bottle of my trusty Breastfeeding Support supplement and there on the main shelf......bags of Chia seeds.
For those that haven't heard of them, the back of the packet reads as follows-

The Chia seed (salvia hispanica) is hightest know source of Omega-3 EFA's (8 times more than Salmon!) and unlike other sources of this important essential fatty acid (eg: flaxseed or fish), it is highly stable due to its powerful naturally occurring antioxidants. We've combined both varieties of seed (black and white) thus maximising their unique nutritional benefits for your optimal health.

Chia is also a good source of protein, phosphorous, folate, zinc, fibre, Vitamins A, B12 & C, and a great source of 18 amino acids (including tryptophan & tyrosine). Packed with complete protein (up to 23%) and 5 times more calcium than milk, 6 times more fibre than oatbran, 3 times more iron than spinach, 15 times more magnesium than broccoli and an ORAC value 4 times higher than blueberries. Is that an easy way to add more nutrition to your daily diet?

So I've been ensuring that each of us has a little serve of these flavourless goodies each day. And mixing up how to have them has also been a bit of fun.

Last week I made a batch of bikkies with the seeds in them.

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

1/2 cup of oats

1/2 cup of Kellog's All-Bran

100g butter

1 cup of flour.

1 egg

1/3 cup of Chia Seeds

40g of Sultanas

2 tablespoons of Golden Syrup

2 tablespoons of brown sugar

Method

Combine all ingredients together and then roll mix into little balls onto a lined baking tray and then bake in over of 180oC for 20-25 minutes. (They very much resemble the taste of an Anzac biscuit with sultanas!)

Other options I've done are mixed some into Huddo's breakfast cereal with his fruit and weetbix. The seeds go quite soft in liquid and are also very hydrating due to how they retain liquid.

For Troy and I,  I have been sprinkling some on our toast then placing our poached eggs on top. The heat from the toast and the eggs has also been a great way to soften them before eating.

I forgot to take a pic of the bikkies sorry but as I mentioned they very much resembled an Anzac bikkie.

As for the seeds I got here is a pic of the pack...

This is a 250g pack and cost $9.95. :)

Risotto Balls...

If there is one thing I can't stand, it's wasting food. That little half serve that is put in a bowl and cling-wrapped after a meal for 'later' only to be put in the bin in 3 days time definitely gets to me. However I was quite happy the other day when I had a bowl of leftover risotto from Troy's and my dinner the night before and decided to make Huddo..Risotto Balls for lunch with the left overs. I normally just spoon feed him risotto but it was a day where I was keen to give the pantry and fridge a wipe down so I thought I'd make a little finger-food friendly meal that would keep him occupied while I did a quick clean and assess dates on herbs, spices, sauces, etc.

Firstly I'll give you the recipe I used to make the risotto itself:

Tuna, Mushroom & Pumpkin Risotto

Ingredients:
180g Tinned Sirena Tuna
200g Sliced Mushrooms
600g Diced Kent Pumpkin
1 brown onion (chopped finely)
250g Broccoli (broken into small florets)
2 cups of Aborio Rice
4 cups of vegetable stock
20g finely grated parmesan.
2 tablespoons of ricotta
clove of garlic (crushed)
1 tsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil

Method:
1)Panfry mushrooms, onion, garlic & pumpkin in tablespoon olive oil and teaspoon of butter until pumpkin is soft and golden
2)Add Tuna and rice and vegie stock. Throw in a splash of salt and pepper to season. Cover with lid and allow to simmer on medium heat. Stir regularly while liquid is absorbed into the rice.
3)About 10 minutes into the rice cooking add the broccoli into the mix
4)Once liquid is absorbed and rice is cooked at parmesan and ricotta.
5)Allow to sit and cheese to cook in on low for 2 minutes. Serve and sprinkle some extra parmesan on top if so desired.


Next day...with a cold bowl of risotto leftovers!

Set yourself up a plate with some flour, breadcrumbs and a bowl of 2 eggs whisked with a fork....

1) Roll a small ball of risotto mix

2) Roll the ball in some flour until covered

3) Dip the ball in egg until covered

4) Roll the ball in breadcrumbs until covered.

5) Repeat steps 1-4 for as many balls as you care to make or until risotto is all done.

I managed to get 12 risotto balls out of my bowl of leftovers and put 6 into a snap-lock bag and froze them. With these 6 I put them into a small saucepan that was about 3cm deep in vegetable oil and on med/high heat and cooked for 90 seconds until golden.

I then let them cool on a plate covered in paper towel so that any excess oil could be absorbed off.

And then gave them to Mr Huddo for his lunch (...as well as a pear sliced into fingers, some saltanas, and a banana)
Which he happily ate and baby-chatted to me while I cleaned the fridge and pantry...

He eats pretty quickly these days so good thing I clean the pantry pretty regularly and there isn't too much to clean and tidy...before I was a stay-at-home Mummy I used to hoard out-of-date sauces, herbs and spices like antiques!!



Bacon & Egg & Spinach Pie....

I recently downloaded to my iPhone the free Woolworths app. I'm in dorky mum heaven with this thing. Creating my shopping list gradually over the week and by specifying which Woolworths I shop at, it breaks up my list into which isles the foods are in. ...Haven't forgotten anything for 2 weeks in a row! ....(That is a massive thing for me! :) )

Also on this app are hundreds of recipes and I decided to give a few a whirl. Today I give you: Bacon, Egg & Spinach Pie.

Ingredients:
4 rashers shortcut rindless bacon, cut into 1cm slices.
2 tsp olive oil
1 onion finely chopped
250g frozen spinach
1/4 cup of cream
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
5 eggs

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 220oC.
2) Grease selected casserole dish or pastry flan with bit of butter.
3) Heat oil in a small frying pan and cook onion until soft and browned.
4) Add spinach and cook until liquid has evaporated. Tranfer into a bowl stir in cream and season with a bit of black peppe. Set aside to cool.
5) Line dish or tin with pastry rolling in the excess pastry.
6) Cook bacon in a frying pan for 3-5 minutes until golden and slightly crispy. Set aside on little plate.
7)Place spinach mix in the dish on top of the pastry.

8)Crack eggs on top of spinach mix and sprinkle bacon over the top

9) Bake for 35 minutes.

hmmmmm....I must of been so keen to eat this one....I didn't take an after shot! (I made this last Friday night. It was quite a big hit and there was good leftovers for Troy for brekky Saturday morning while I was at the market that I'm making it again this Friday night....I'll take one then and re-edit this post.) Highly recommend. Good protein in this and also the iron levels in the spinach is great too.

Cheese & Vegemite Scrolls...

Now for any overseas readers...you may have heard about Aussie's love of a product called Vegemite. It is a concentrated yeast extract that is very savory and a dark brown/nearly black looking spread. It is really rich in B vitamins which makes it quite a nutritional staple part of a lot of Aussie diets. Another great food to put it with is cheese! yum. So with that said today's post is a recipe for Cheese & Vegemite Scrolls. A great morning tea snack. Australian's will know that Baker's Delight Bakeries trademark the name Cheesymite Scrolls but these little lovelies are about a third of the size of their scrolls which makes them more portion friendly for little bellies. (And a healthy portion for a morning/afternoon snack for us big people).

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
50g of chopped soft unsalted butter
3/4 cup of milk
1 tablespoon of warmed vegemite
1 1/2 cups of Tasty Grated Cheese

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 200 oC and place baking paper on a tray.
2) Sift flour into a bowl.
3) Add butter and using fingertips rub into flour until well combined.
4) Make a well in the centre of the mix and add milk.
5)Use a spatula to loosely combine the mix
6)Lightly sprinkle some self raising flour onto a clean bench.
7)With your hands work the mix into a ball and place on the bench. Knead well until smooth.
8) Roll out with a pin to about a 25cm x 40 cm rectanglular shape. (mine looked more like an oval but oh well.) :)
9)Spread vegemite and sprinkle most of the cheese.

10)Gently roll up the dough and cut into 12 pieces.

11)Once cut place the scrolls on the baking tray close together and sprinkle on top the remaining grated cheese.

12)Place tray into the oven and bake for 20 minutes until golden.

Yummmmmm... :)

Keepsakes...Part 5... Hudson's 1st Year Photobook.

To say I'm a little obsessed with photos is an understatement. I take so many it can border on a little ridiculous. But as the final present to our Huddo for his First Birthday I've compiled a story-photo-book of his first year. I have the intention of doing a book like this for him each year and once it has arrived will be sticking inside the front cover a cd-envelope to keep the 'dvd' of all the edited video footage from the year also with it. (I finished the book on Saturday night and ordered it. It will be here in about 10 days which gives me that amount of time to finish the DVD!...I have about 220 minutes of footage that I'm aiming to cut to about an 80 minute DVD...I'm 3/4 of the way there.)

So for anyone thinking they would like to do the same or just curious to see the book.... Click here.

This book was created on the Harvey Norman Photocentre Online site.

Toddler Trifle...

With all the cakes I've been making lately there has been a fair bit of excess, for example when I bake cupcakes, etc. With a batch that made 14 cupcakes I took 2 uniced and I decided to make an after dinner dessert for Hudson.....I'm calling it Toddler Trifle.

The ingedients are pictured below:


2 Apples
1/2 cup diced pineapple pieces
2 vanilla cupcakes
1 sachet of Angel Delight Banana custard powder (has no artificial colours, low sugar...etc)
1 sachet of Aeroplane Jelly Tropical (the range that is made of natural colours & flavours and has 25% less sugar that regular jelly)

Method:
1)Make the jelly in a bowl as per the directions on packet (allow setting time)
2)Once jelly has set, make Angel delight as per directions in a separate bowl. This is made in one bowl in 5 minutes.
3)In a saucepan cook apples (peeled, cored & diced) and pineapple together until apple is soft. Loosely mash fruit.
4)put cupcakes into a plastic ziplock back and crush into crumbs.
5)In little toddler serve containers 1/4 fill with cake crumbs then 1/4 with jelly (about 3 teaspoons), 1/4 of fruit mix, then last quarter top with Angel delight.
6)gently stir in container the mix the layers loosely.

Keep in fridge for up to 5 days. (with this in mind I only made 4 portions) there was a bit of jelly and fruit left so I put the excess fruit into ice-cube trays and into the freezer for brekkys, etc. The excess Jelly....well Troy and I had it with some fruit pieces.   :)

A Toast to the First Year.....

With my excitement of Huddo's birthday and him reaching this milestone there were a few hugs with Troy and the two of us making the joke of 'hey we survived the first year of parenthood...yay to us!'.
So to all the first time parents of one year olds everywhere I salute you. And for a laugh here is a special post of some rough calculations of  my everyday 'Mummy Stuff' activities...

Nappies changed- 2920
Clothing changes Huddo has had - 1277
Loads of washing- 364
Meals cooked - 416 (this includes separate meals cooked for Huddo)
Times I've done the dishes - 734
Times I've cleaned my food processor - 136
Packed away toys - 320 (this stat starts from about 3 months old)
Toy Audits/ going through and putting away 'grown out of toys' - 4
Baths given - 370
Vacuummed the floors - 289
Cleaned the highchair - 859
Soaked the straps on the highchair in Napisan because they were covered in food! - 148
Swimming lessons - 11
Trips to play at the park - 123
Cakes baked - 9
Muffins baked - 144
Trips to the Supermarket - 55

Number of smiles Troy and Hudson have put on my face in the past year......impossible to calculate... :)

Hudson's Birthday... Part 2

On Saturday 3rd September we had a little BBQ for Hudson's 1st Birthday. We went with a 'Mickey Mouse Clubhouse' theme as it's Hudson's favourite show. Over the course of the day we had some family and a few close friends visit to see the birthday boy, eat some yummy food and play a bit of cricket and footy in the park. With the ever unpredictable Sunshine Coast weather and the fact we have a rather small apartment we limited who we invited in the event that it was raining and we had to move our BBQ in the park to eating dinner in our apartment. Good thing we did this as it didn't rain but it was exceptionally windy and come 6.30 for dinner once the BBQ was cooked we moved up to our place. It was a little squishy but everyone was much much warmer and we had a great time. Most importantly though Hudson had a great day.

Now to let you know a little about the food......
Some of the Gold Coast family including Hudson's Grandad, Nonna & Uncles came up for lunch so for them I served 2 trays of lasagne that I had made the night before but baked on the day and salad. Then since they were not going to be here for cake I made vanilla cupcakes so we could put a candle in and sing Happy Birthday to Hudson...(Note: For the Mickey Mouse decorations at the BBQ, the little cupcake patty pans with picks & Mickey Mouse lolly bags I got them from Discount Party Supplies on Ebay.

For dinner we served standard BBQ food and a few extras: Sausages, burgers, chicken sticks, another tray of lasagne, garden salad and Cous Cous with pumpkin, fetta and baby spinach.  To say we had leftovers is an understatement. For the last couple of months I've been doing groceries on a Sunday....not this week...we will be having BBQ meats and salad for the rest of the week in this house!

Then after dinner those that were remaining sang Happy Birthday one more time to the Birthday Boy and this time with a candle in his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake. He was getting a little sleepy from such a big day but gobbled down a piece of his extra special cake made by Mum Mum.

My best cake thus far and the excitement on Huddo's face was more than worth the hours of decorating and staying up until midnight to not only finish the cake but clean up the massive mess of icing in every colour of the rainbow. For this I made of 5 vanilla sponge cakes (2 rectangular, 2 circular and one small circle for the base of the clubhouse)  with homemade (from a stand at the Eumundi markets) Strawberry jam spread between each layer. The black head of the clubhouse is styrofoam balls I got from Spotlight, pinned together with wooden skewer sticks and painted black. Fondant icing was used to cover the base of the clubhouse and the 4 layers of the cake. Fondant was also used for the blue slide/tail of the clubhouse, the entrance to the clubhouse, the letters to create Hudson's name on the cake, the windows on the clubhouse and the yellow fence. Buttercream icing with vegetable shortening was used for the star-piped grass effect, the flowers at Minnie & Daisy's feet, and the star-piping in colours associated with each character that they are standing on. Black 'writing icing' was used for the grill on the windows and for the door to the clubhouse. Detail-wise I was really happy with my 'drop flowers' I made for Daisy and Minnie! (When I took the pic below Minnie's flowers were still in the freezer getting solid) The second pic was taken by our friend Grant (with his AMAZING camera).

I had a lot of fun making this however, like I mentioned earlier the look on Hudson's face was just priceless and so worth all the effort.

As a final touch for the day and salute to the theme I made some little lolly bags for the kiddies that came along. Inside some Mickey Mouse little plastic bags I just put a couple of Freddo Frogs and two chocolate shortbreads in the Mickey shape piped with mickey's pants...here is one of the 2 trays I made..

It was a very fun week and I couldn't get over all the amazing presents Hudson got. So I took a photo with all his presents put it up on my facebook and tagged everyone on their present....

The final present from Mummy & Daddy that is yet to come is his photo-story book that I have made for him about his 1st year. I wanted to add a few pages of photos from his birthday. I've also nearly finished editing a DVD with all the video footage we've taken over the first year.  I will put up a link in a post when I finish it for those that are interested. How he's grown. To think when he was born he was just over 5.1kg (11lb 6oz) and 55cm. Now he is 14kg and 84cm.

What a year! What a kid! Troy and I are so happy and feel so blessed to have such an awesome little man.

Huddo's 1st Birthday....part 1

On Hudson's 1st Birthday and I really couldn't get over how excited I was. I knew naturally I would be excited for my son in reaching this milestone, but I was sooooo excited for him to open his pressies from Troy and I.

Leading up to his birthday there had been the great present debate. How much do we spend? What type of things does he need? What is he interested in currently? and all the time being consious of the fact we don't have much space in our 2 bedroom apartment. With this being our only child's first birthday we wanted it to be special. The main thing with Hudson is that he's all about activities and thanks to The Wonder Weeks we used this to look at what toys he had and what stimulating things to get for his mental development. Also as much as we like for his toys to be things he enjoys it's great to be able to play things with him. So we got him a box of 150 megablocks (on special for $18), a pack of 5 wooden toddler puzzles ($23), 2 new pair of shoes from Our Shoes ($40) and a kiddy gold set ($10). He LOVED all of his new pressies and had so much fun making a big mess in the living room with all the blocks and wrapping paper.

After we played with the pressies it was time for lunch and with a banana and chocolate muffin with a candle in it Troy and I sang Happy Birthday to our son. To be honest as much as this was Hudson's 1st birthday he's no stranger to this song as every Saturday for the past year (he was born on a Saturday) I would sing him 'Happy __ week birthday'. I probably should stop that now so I don't confuse the poor fella. 

Hudson's birthday was on Sunday 28th August however, the night before was his Auntie Jenny's 40th birthday party so we made his little party for the following weekend since a big portion of the family live on the Gold Coast and with us being on the Sunshine Coast and promoting responsible driving we didn't want to encourage our family to come up and visit when they would've had a big night the night before! :)