3rd Birthday Dairy Free Farm Party

Sturrock does not need to be dairy free... but his baby sister does and I am feeding her and I love to eat plus I was making all the food so the party was almost entirely dairy free 🙋

Some healthy farm fresh snacks

Cocktail sausages 

  Mini cupcakes in the barn windows

 Milk bottles full of white marshmallows

 Nectar

 Milk (the only dairy at this dairy party 🤣)

along with strawberry and chocolate milk in my little milk bottles - these were from my wedding I made shortie ingredient favours like these ones

 Pick your own strawberries

 Raspberries

 and blueberries

 Found these carrot sweets at Easter and held onto them for my theme

 Loved these little bags for the pringles to look like tatty sacks - they are Lidl bakery bags folded down on themselves

I have yet to do a party or event where a meringue doesn't feature and Ivy was still reacting to eggs at that time so made these aquafaba meringues.  They worked great!  For any egg intolerances these are just like the real thing - they just smell funky while mixing them up :) 

 The star of the show is always the cake - pretty basic field cake with a few fondant animals and a John Deere - Sturrock loves a John Deere he had a saying for a while if he really wanted me to agree to something it was a John Deal 🤣🤣🤣

 Been a while since a gingerbread made an appearance at one of my parties ( here, here and here) but I loved this so much to go with the theme and dairy free version tasted great

These however didn't taste that great although the kids all seemed to like them.  Chocolate flavoured just isn't the same as chocolate is it?  I really miss chocolate the most out of going dairy-free.  Ivy has cows milk protein allergy and is allergic to soya so it has been very hard going for me adjusting my diet.  Hundreds of people do it I know and I wouldn't have it any other way I am so pro-breastfeeding it wouldn't enter my head to use a forumla instead but could she not have been allergic to vegetables or something I wouldn't miss SO much?!  

 I used a dairy free empire biscuit recipe for these but didn't sandwih them together just kept them singular.  The empire biscuits I make out of this recipe are fantastic however I think they need their friend to keep them together - these were very crumbly and I did them again for my next party and same thing happened but in between times making them into empires this didn't happen so looking for a better dairy free biscuit recipe that will hold up to icing and also cutting into shapes.  Tastes great though so I wasn't complaining.

I love a tiny cupboard of cakes I did this at Eliza's third birthday too with a different cupboard and Muddy Puddles theme

 The birthday cake was sponge so I like to make the alternative chocolate cakes as cupcakes when I do a sponge birthday cake ya know in case there is not enough cake or I get bored of one flavour?! 😜  We took these to Tiny Talk with us for a mini party there too.  Sturrock is such a great signer he has over 200 signs.  These cupcakes were made without eggs - using aquafaba again as he replacement - and they were aqua-fab!

 Another dairy free treat - peanut butter cups.  I tried lots of different dairy free baking - I am so surprised more coffee shops and restaurants don't do dairy free baking because a lot of time there is only the switch of butter to dairy free spread and stork block is dairy free so it doesn't taste any different!  I have tried to tell a few local cafes how easy it is to cater to so many people who suffer but so far not been very successful although have had a couple of great finds along the way.

 Can't believe he is 3 already!  Time flies so fast.  Have absolutely adored being off work on maternity leave and getting more time back with my boyo as well as the baby girl. It doesn't seem long since I was uploading photos of Eliza's 3rd birthday how can it be Sturrock's turn?  So much has happened since her birthday not least getting engaged, married and having two more babies.  It's incredible to think I had no idea all this was ahead of me 💌  What will the next few years bring???

 A few shop bought items featured too because they fit the theme - hay bale Krispie squares

 and Oreo tractor wheels

 Put his Bruder toys to good use too as the cutlery, straws and plates dispensers

We had a great day celebrating with his friends he met at Tiny Talk and their mums who have become great friends.  We played a few games including pin the wheel on the tractor 

Some more homemade touches 

 As always I love a themed party bag to take home - I painted initials onto little plaques

 and made felt finger puppets to match an animal based book each

 A packet of sweets, an animal slap band and a piece of cake to take away = a lovely little party bag

 Goldilocks is a bit of a brute 🤭 I apologised to the child who received her 🤣

I love making things out of felt for party bags I have made so many things now to match my themes like Mr Men, Princess and the Wizard , Under the Sea and Woodland

I upcycled an Ikea kitchen for his birthday too 

 My Dad made this lovely set to go with it - he is so lucky!  Homemade presents are the absolute best - well maybe when you are 3 but I imagine my 15 year old would say different 🤯🤣 I love this present so much.  They look great in his little cafe

I really do adore a party and a theme and this one was so easy and fun to shop my house for all the bits that would tie it together.  My favourite bit of putting the table together is going around the house looking at things in a different way to see if they could be incorporated.

Next party is Eliza's 9th!! 

Town mouse and pantry mouse

😭😢🐭🐁 My most horrendous week - March 2019...

I walked into the pantry on the Saturday night and as I switched on the light something skittered past me on the worktop so I ran for my life 🤣

Drummed up some courage and poked about with the end of a brush handle.  Took quite a while but then I saw the little beast.  Phoned Grant - he was on his way back to work after having only been home for a wee visit for an hour.  Phoned Dad - he was out at a party.  Told me to whack it if I see it and to lay out traps (our plinth drawers had signs of a mouse last year but we sealed up the holes and no sign since but the traps were here for me to use)

Made sure everyone in the house knew not to use the pantry and managed to sleep on and off that night dreaming of wee moosies.

Next day was Mother's Day and we lost an hour's sleep with the clocks going back - thanks for that!  Who decided to have Mothers Day that day?!  The cake and chocolate from the traps were gone but no mice were caught - just feeding the mouse making him feel welcome 🙄

That night I woke up from a dream/nightmare about mice and freaked out I could hear little feet on my bed.  I continued to hear little feet...then a bag I had in my room rustling.  Took a long time of listening and poking about my room but I eventually seen the little nightmare.  I was so freaked out I sat crying on my bed with the attic hatch stick amd a couple of walking sticks in case it jumped out at me 😥

Got the teenager up and asked him to help.  He sat with me for a while and it kept running out from under my bed when we sat quietly but Finlay got bored and told me just to go to sleep.  Haha great parenting,

I lay with my weapons for a long time and eventually my little friend wandered out and into the lobby.  Finlay heard me chasing it so he came out of his room and Eliza woke up too.  It jumped down the stairs to the landing then the next set of stairs and zipped under the livingroom door.  In there I sealed us all in and we chased it for an hour.  At one point it ran up the lining of the curtain and we could touch it through the fabric.  I didnt want to whack it anyway but definitely not in my cream curtains :O Tried to shake it out into garden through the window but no luck.  After that we lost him so we called it quits and went back to bed but sealed the door up with brown parcel tape.

In the morning I checked and he was still living it up in my livingroom so I left him there and phoned the exterminator aka My Dad - Grandad Ian.  He dealt with it (using a toy saw 🤣).  It had climbed into my couch and eaten a button!  I was really hoping that was the end of it but my Dad had me terrified there would be a whole family of them living here so I went through to the pantry and after poking about for a good while I caught sight of another one!  Grandad Ian to the rescue again please📱!

Door resealed ⛔


It went into hiding again so it took quite a while of Dad going through the pantry piece by piece but eventually he got him with the handy toy saw again 🤣 Must have been gluten free it had been eating my GF flour poor coeliac mousie 🍞

I was petrified for weeks after that.  There was signs of another one and Finlay saw it run under the fridge.  All the doors got sealed and every hole we could find has now been blocked up - including the one under the fridge that one had obviously been gaining entry through.  It is now August and I am still terrified to go to the pantry or reach in for anything so I poke around first.  Also don't like that I have to stand in the dark bedroom trying to get the baby back to sleep wondering if a mouse will run over my feet 🐁We sat out with the fire pit on the other night and I could hear something rustling in the bushes.  They are pretty cute but I have now got a real fear of blooming mice!  Fingers crossed they got the message and don't bother coming back here although with all the moths I have now I could prpbably do with a mouse to sniff out where they are coming from.  Absolutely petrified to find a seething moth nest in my wardrobe so I poke about in there to get my clothes out too 🙄

Everyone always says they are more scared of you than you are of them....I don't think that can possibly be true.