Eliza's 2nd birthday

The gorgeous little 10 month old who couldn't even sit up when we first met turned 2 years old today. It's quite astonishing when you look back at photos of her from last year and see how much she has changed from a chubby baby to the little girl she is today, although she is still rather chubby faced! Candy was in hospital this week, all fine, but this meant sorting a cake for Eliza fell on me. I rented a horse shaped tin from the cooking shop in Geraldine to use and had to invest in brown food colouring that I know won't be used again. Eliza is a little obsessed with the horse Lego pieces they have so it seemed the most fitting shape. I spent a day and half baking 3 different cakes, using a ridiculous amount of eggs and probably my own body weight in butter trying to get a good cake. The struggle was that the tin took 2 cake mixes to fill but no where does it give any guidance as to how that affects the cooking times and temperatures. It was an incredibly stressful day and in the end Bruce ended up baking a packet cake mix at 9pm at night which actually ended up saving the day. The rejects didn't go to waste though because I cut the uncooked parts out and after adding some butter cream and icing they were consumed by the farm staff in the shed within an hour or so. Everyone seems to be quite pleased with the baking this year especially a brownie recipe I discovered that Tarran, the other calf rearer, has fallen in love with. He's always sad when my baking isn't brownies. I spent most of Saturday morning icing Eliza's cake and by the time Bruce and Candy came home at lunch it was more or less complete and they both loved it. It made all the effort, struggles and time worth it. Candy went out and bought food and decorations so on Sunday I decorated the front room ready for Eliza's party. As Candy and I put food on the table just before everyone arrived Eliza hopped up on the chair and looked incredibly excited by all the food infront of her and said thank you every time we brought another plate over. She wasted no time tucking in despite there being no guests yet. I guess that's allowed when it's your party! She had her cousins and the other children on farm come over and even though not many people came in the end she seemed to have an awesome day. Also this week Cassidy spotted her "favourite" calf of the season on one of our walks. He had a pink nose with a black spot in the centre of it. Her response was "Charlotte it's like the mole on your head", I guess she's a little right! It's just a shame it's a boy so won't be kept but she seems to understand this concept more this year. There's definitely a very sad reality to dairy farm when it comes to bull calves.Meer informatie