Ariana's Fourth Birthday or The Day I Went Insane

It actually began a few days before when I decided to make gingerbread houses for Ariana and her friends to decorate. It took me two days to make the gingerbread and another to put them together into what could only generously called houses - they were actually more like tenement houses or more realistically - outhouses.

The recipe itself was easy - the mixing wore me out as the batter is really hard and with only a hand mixer, very tiring. The putting together was frustrating as the walls kept coming down, which required an enormous amount of icing glue to make stick.


They all stood up on the day of decorating though which made me very happy. A thin film of flour is still on the counters after many scrubbings and I am still finding bits of gingerbread batter stuck to everything with a 10 foot range of the mixer. And Ariana's creation is on the counter waiting to be eaten.

Then, in an additional fit of "creativity" in the wake of the "no sugar" policy at her school (don't even get me started on this one!!) I decided to make a "fruit" cake. While at the store to buy a piece of Styrofoam to stick the fruit on, my friend Darla encouraged me to get creative and actually make something. The something turned into a truck, since Ariana is big into Bob the Builder these days, shouting with excitement every time we see a truck, or a mixer, or actually anything resembling anything Bob the Builderish.



At school, the kids liked the truck and the fruit, but were still disappointed there was no cake (I found out that morning at the mom's meeting that I could have made a cake with honey or another "natural" sweetener, but really, that just gets me more irate- sugar is sugar!!!)

At home, the kids arrived and were having a fine time......

The Bob the Builder Lego Crane Set went over well...........
and Ariana had fun showing everyone how the elevator worked in her new doll house..



running laps around the apartment was fun for everyone............
.....here is Ariana showing Darla how old she is now........4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!