Slabs

I have had a crazy last few weeks with Rafe's 5th birthday (and first ever real birthday party), and The Husbands 40th, with our friends Pete and Alex over from NZ for the last week. I decided early in the planning process that organisation was going to be the only way of not buckling under the stress of clean houses and fun events. For those that know me, the birthday cake situation was fraught with high risk and high stress. Betty Crocker was not the answer this year.

I have this fabulous friend Mia. Mia kind of rescued me one day from a post pre-school playground get together and dragged me into her group. The fact she was 2 days away from having a baby and had been in our area only 4 weeks longer than me made her effort even more impressive. And she totally won over The Husband by introducing herself with a "Hi, you must be Rafe's dad, I'm Mia". Anyhow she is gorgeous, positive, friendly and a very dear friend.

And she has introduced two new innovations into my life.

The quote board.

The Slab.

Rafe went to her little guys birthday and he had a very acceptable birthday cake. Now Mia is the type of person who has 4 boys around for a playdate and gets them to make a chocolate cake so I assumed it was a home made job. "Hell no" was her response, "I just picked a slab up from Manly Freezers" (a little frozen food catering shop in our area). I grilled her - price, varietals (Rafe doesn't eat chocolate cake), process.... I was sorted, I had a birthday cake plan. So 3 days before Rafe's birthday party, I did a practice run, checked out the slabs, parking, bought some smarties to put on top. All good. One day to go, I went and purposefully bought the frozen slab, and at Mia's suggestion, went to put it in my freezer to be defrosted the next day. Problem, my freezer wasn't big enough for it - to many shelves, not enough large flat spaces. Panic call to Mia, who once again rescued me by keeping it in her freezer for me.

The result - one smartie laden 5 year old birthday slab. And did he eat it?

Nup.

But all the kids at the after school playdate ate the OTHER slab I bought in my slab frenzy.