Happy Birthday Bailey!

My oldest and youngest niece 

It's amazing how time flies! This time last year I was celebrating the birth of my baby niece Bailey and just a few weeks ago we celebrated her 1st birthday! It was a beautiful day with family and friends coming from near and wide to show her love. We even had a surprise appearance from my Grandma all the way from the Caribbean!

The proud parents

Aunty Whitney

Grandma and Jacey

Aunty Ayeda and Hana

And so to the cake... I recently bought the new book by Amy Atlas called Sweet Designs. Amy Atlas is an events designer extraordinaire and Queen of the dessert table. I wanted to have a sweets themed table and with help from Hilda we created a mountain of sugar delights!

The spread

Sweeeeeeeets! 

Rum cake

Gooey marshmallow chocolate brownies

Vanilla Cake with vanilla buttercream and skittles

More sweets 

Dessert tables are definitely the way to go but as you can imagine with all of those E numbers readily available, the energy in the room was ridiculous. By the end of the day we were all exhausted! I think this next picture sums it up best :)

Exhausted!

What a beautiful day :) 

Happy Birthday Bailey, we love you!!!

Dancing Queen in the making :)

Peace & Love

xx

Taking it easy....

My partner in crime!

Hello My Friends!

Well, it's been a while. In my last post I talked about the busy trap and my incessant need to cram as much as possible into my life. I then flew out to France and had an amazing time sunning myself, eating and dancing the night away! 

Worldwide Festival Sete 2012

Then it was all over and I came home to the rain and a broken laptop! It's also the end of term and I've had my hands full with the boys getting ourselves organised. Holiday blues plus stress is not a good combination so I decided to take it easy and do what I could manage. It's funny how you get so used to stressing out that it's actually effort to relax... I'm getting there though and now school is out & my laptop is back in operation!! 

There's so much to fill you in on and more importantly lots and lots of cakes. First things first though, I want to show off my holiday pictures so here is a small selection, Enjoy...

Me and Robert Glasper

Dancing Queens

The Gang

Jan :)

Beach chilling

Seafood!!!

 

Not sure what you call this but it's like fencing in canoes... It was cool :)

Tielles - an amazing squid pastry dish

Have a great week!

Peace & Love

xx

Vive La France

It's that time of year again, when I go to the Worldwide Music Festival in Sète, France (my home from home). Apart from all the fun I'm looking forward to having, it's actually been a real time of reflection for me. This time last year, I had an 'aha moment' on the beach when I decided I needed to stop running around like a headless chicken & get my priorities straight. Then came almost a year of being a stay-at-home mum and a time of massive reflection. 

Whilst staying at home is good, I needed more and I felt that I was ready to return, renewed & inspired. Except that as I stepped back on to the treadmill of the 9-5 I quickly fell back into my old patterns. The last few weeks have been busy to the point of lunacy. I'm bored of hearing myself go on about how exhausted I am & how busy I am... Like who cares! 

So, as I update my blog, while checking my Facebook, while packing my bag with only 2 hours till I need to catch my flight, while frantically panicking about all the things I haven't done; I'm looking forward to getting some more inspiration on the beach & chillaxing! Here's to not falling into the busy trap!

But back to the food & France. These macarons were an attempt to impress a French friend of mine but unfortunately I didn't quite manage to get them to her (although they were still enjoyed). I used the recipe from one of my favourite food blogger/stylist/photographer people called Helene Du Jardin on her blog tartelette. I shall be away for a week & I'm sure I'll have plenty to fill you in on when I get back!

Peace & Love

xx