Liam Turns Five

My little guy turned five today. He's had a fabulous build up to his big day. With it being half-term holidays with glorious weather, he's had long days of playing, swimming, water gun fights and late nights. I've had loads of time to relax and get things ready for his party at leisure, and tackle his Star Wars X-Wing cake, which he practically chose the day of his fourth (Pirate themed) birthday last year. Once again Flickr came to the rescue with lots of images to inspire me, and I made this cake for him...

The best part was when I realised a canneloni tube covered in regalice made the perfect compressor - it meant the whole cake came together and actually looked a bit like a real X-wing.
I also tried my hand at painting the shading with food coloring paste mixed in alcohol (you can't use water based colors on regalice) and I really like the effect, I might try it again!

This is his face when he saw what we'd got him - the Ben 10 Omnitrix we promised him months ago during a melt-down in the toy shop! Glad he still wanted it after all this time, and it hardly left his wrist all day.

For his party we booked the lovely people from RugbyTots. He'd done a session during the February half-term which he loved, so when I saw they did parties too, I just knew it would be a hit for his 5th birthday. All the kids had a blast, and the girls who'd been a bit unsure of a boy-themed party did better than the boys at many of the games!



Blowing his candles out - the cake was a big hit too!

And one last view of the cake - it's all gone now, and it tasted great! And I can say with confidence now that the alcohol does evaporate off leaving just the coloring behind. Oh, and a word of advice, if you try painting with alcohol and food coloring, don't keep licking your paintbrush like you would with artist colors, lol!