Harry turns 8 and Rainbow Cake

the beginning of the night

Ballet girls

Cousins

Dinner over and movie about to begin

Harry and his lovely friend Joe who he has known since he was about 2

Archie getting in on the action!

School friends

Rare moment of concentration and silence

Morning pancakes

Last weekend was all about Harry who turned 8 years old on Monday. We decided that he could have a sleepover so last Friday night we had a grand total of 10 little darlings over. They were all such good kids. Harry had contingents from Ballet, from school and from Family. No one was left out and all kids got on very very well with each other which I think is pretty amazing considering their age and that some didn't know each other. After a little play, we fed them all with pizza, hot chips, the mandatory red sausages and fizzy drink followed by make-your-own ice cream sundaes and birthday cake (which the kids ended up taking home as they were all too full to have any on the night). Then they all got into their pj's and we made the lounge floor into one big mattress which they (and the dog Archie) loved. I had rented a few movies so they watched Brave and Arthur Christmas with some popcorn, lollies and chips followed by teeth-brushing and multiple trips to the loo. After giving them the hard word, they were finally asleep by 1am (and awake again by 545am)! 

Considering the lack of sleep they were all pretty perky in the morning. I got up and made them all hot chocolates and then 'whipped up' loads of pancakes with some fruit on the side. Pick up was 930 am and the kids seemed to have a fantastic time as did the birthday boy.

I decided to surprise Harry with the cake this year and pretty hot on the blogging circuit is the rainbow cake. It looks pretty lovely, and while it's a pretty basic vanilla cake, if you love buttercream you will love this. I got the recipe from here which seems to be the hot favourite recipe at the moment. I made a plain vanilla buttercream rather than the icing she makes. It looks pretty spectacular and while it's an easy cake to make (and it used up some of the copious amounts of egg whites I have in the freezer too), it's just a little fiddly and time consuming. I used the good cake gel colours to get the intense colours you need although from what I have read, people have found the standard food colourings to work well. It was lovely to see his and the other kids faces when I cut it as they were all trying to guess what flavour it was (chocolate was the favourite choice).

All the bowls of batter coloured

Well iced so it was all covered up so he couldn't see what flavour it was

Happy birthday Pup (the candles glowed the same colour as the wax)

Not the best photo but you get the idea....