The Random Blurb: David's 9th Birthday

David was 9 on his birthday... My how time flies! Seems not that long ago he was just a baby and now he's 9 years old! As most of you know, he is a big, big Spongebob fan, so when he asked for an acoustic guitar, we thought the Spongebob Squarepants acoustic guitar set would be the perfect present and he loved it! There's a video below of David playing Wild Things (The Troggs) on his guitar - pretty amazing!

David playing on his new Spongebob Squarepants guitar.

David also got a Cars 2 augmented reality book off us. His Granny & Grandad (Paul's parents) got him his Liverpool FC away football shirt, his Grandma (my Mum) got him Cars 2 Klip Kitz and a Koo Koo bird, and he got £15 cash from my Uncle & Aunt (his second Uncle?) which he went shopping last weekend with with an extra £15 from us and bought a magic set, a Cars 2 movie scene thingy, Spongebob Squarepants bubble sword, Phineas & Ferb Agent Perry kit and Cars 2 notepad with spy glasses. Here he is with all of his stuff he got on his birthday (not the stuff he bought at the weekend)...

Anyway, it was a school day, so he was at school during the day. We used the time he was at school to make him some party foods & his birthday cake - though he didn't have a big party, it was just him & Latisha (my little sister, David's aunt who is also 9 years old).

Normally we just buy packet cakes mixes, and ready to cook party snacks and a pre-made character birthday cake from the supermarket, but I decided to make some unique snacks myself this year.

I found several good recipes online. I made some ham salad baps into little monsters with cucumber for feet and cherry tomatoes & sultanas for eyes. This was the finished result...

We made some sausage rolls and cheese & onion rolls (but that's just because Paul is vegetarian), but we cheated on those as they were frozen packets from the supermarket! I made some bear paw print cupcakes (victoria sponge cake, topped with buttercream and using the middles of jaffa cakes and minstrels for the prints) and some froggy cupcakes (victoria sponge cake topped with vanilla frosting that I put green food colouring and then green American hard gums cut in half for the eyes and a bit of icing and food colouring for the eyes centres) though and I was very pleased with how they turned out...

I also made some marshmallows dipped in melted chocolate and then rolled in hundreds and thousands, but I didn't think they turned out so well...

I decided to make David a treasure chest birthday cake as he likes pirates and stuff. I was a bit worried as to how it would turn out as I've never made such a big cake before, let alone one with any sort of design or layering. I had to make one big cake and use a piece out of the middle as wedges to prop the treasure chest 'lid' up. I made a chocolate cake as it's Davids' favourite. I coated the whole cake in chocolate fudge frosting, then used strawberry fruit winders as straps, Tango bon bons as jewels on the top of the case, and used chocolate gold coins to prop up the lid and to put in the middle and around the bottom of the cake to look like treasure. I also used iced cups, chocolate footballs and candy bracelets to serve as treasure on the cake. I was very pleased with how it turned out and everyone seemed to enjoy it...

I think David was pleased with his mini party, all his party food, his cakes and his birthday overall... Well at least I'm hoping he was! He did seem happy, so that's always a good thing! I think between his birthday and his days out the weekend before to Alton Towers & Chester Zoo, he had a really good birthday!